


The Man Behind The Weapon

by lazywriter7



Series: And In The Silence That Follows [2]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Angst, Awesome T'Challa (Marvel), Character Dynamics, Extremis, Fix-It, Gen, M/M, Marvel 616 References, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Peter Parker is a Ray of Sunshine, Post-Captain America: Civil War (Movie), Rhodey is the best, Slow Burn, Steve Has Issues, Steve Rogers Feels, Tony Has Trust Issues, Tony Solves His Emotions With Science, Tony Stark Has A Heart, ideological differences, rebuilding the avengers, understanding each other
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-01-19
Updated: 2017-04-15
Packaged: 2018-09-18 14:06:29
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 23,472
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9388577
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lazywriter7/pseuds/lazywriter7
Summary: “Humans are machines. Fascinating ones, but fatally flawed- because we feel too much. We try our hardest to be objective; but whenever two sides are too close, we ‘follow our heart’, which means fall prey to whatever our emotions think best and fuck all that logic might have had to say about it.”Sequel to 'And In The Silence That Follows'. Three months after the 'truce', AIM is on the move again, and Norman Osborn seems increasingly determined to seize power in the void that the Avengers left behind. Logic dictates that Tony should cooperate with the runaway superheroes, led by one Steve Rogers to get ahead of the situation. Too bad his trust issues don't agree with him. Too bad humans aren't actually machines who can turn emotions off at the flick of a butto-Oh. Hello Extremis.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This has been a long, long time in coming. I'm so sorry for the wait guys- I hope it was worth it. To those who haven't read the prequel to the story, it isn't strictly necessary to understand this one, but I'd recommend doing so anyway. Thanks to the Stony community over at imzy for providing feedback on a part of this chapter. 
> 
> And before you ask...no, I couldn't resist the ending. Okay, I'm terrified now. -runs and hides-

_This was stupid. He hadn’t even been this nervous flying a nuclear warhead through a wormhole._

_“So. I’m guessing you’re here because of the brand-new, spanking A plastered across this building that’s, surprisingly enough, not accompanied by the four other most narcissistic letters in the alphabet.”_

_Romanov_ _-_ _Natasha, he should probably start calling her Natasha now, arched her brows by half an inch. Tony should be grateful, really, the four other people in the room still appeared to be comprehending their way out of his sentence. Except Barton, he looked to be in deep contemplation of the ceiling._

_“No.” Ro_ _-_ _Natasha interjected into his delightfully tangential train of thought. “We’re here because your death got reported on the news, followed by your subsequent saving of the President; so we assumed you called everyone for something **urgent**.”_

_“Instead of, you know.” Barton still wouldn’t look away from the ceiling. So rude. “Setting up Alpha Sigma Phi.”_

_Tony could see Steve’s eyebrows crinkle from the corner of his vision; he barely suppressed a smirk. “Hey, only I get to annoy Cap with shitty references. Whose explanations, of course, make us despair even more for the world as it is.” And then back to Natasha, all snark and pizzazz. “Besides, apparently Capitol Hill thinks we’re both jerks now. Can’t we bond for once?”_

_“I forgot to call them assclowns.” Natasha delivered, flat and unashamed. “I could not live up to your legacy, you must swear never to speak to me again.”_

_“Honestly though, Tony.” A new voice joined the conversation, which was great because Tony was starting to miss his science bro. Bruce scrunched up further into the armchair he’d appropriated, but his voices still rang clear. “A superhero frathouse doesn’t seem like the best of ideas.”_

_Of course, it remained unstated that any house with Bruce in it wasn’t considered by him to be the best of ideas; but the fact that Tony could cast an eye around his penthouse right now_ _-_ _Natasha reclined on one end of the leather couch as much as a superspy could pretend to recline, Barton squatting like a hobo on the other end, Cap standing off to the side all straight-backed_ _-_ _meet all their eyes and know for a fact that they all thought Bruce’s estimations of himself counted for shit…it settled that nervous twitch in his belly. Reaffirmed that part of him that already knew he was doing the right thing._

_“Look…it sounds ridiculous in theory. But the next time some crazy guy with a fever gone wild comes to burn my house down,” Tony refused to blink, gaze steadfast. Belief was a strange thing. “I’d like my backup to not be my civilian, traumatised girlfriend. I know we aren’t exactly the kind of people who go around asking for help…but maybe it won’t be as difficult if we’re also the ones offering it. Plus, we don’t necessarily have to be tied down here, I just thi_ _-_ _”_

_Tony exhaled. When he raised his head again, every pair of eyes in the room was fixated on him. “I think we could all do with a place we could come back to, if we wanted. To offer us some form of…”_

_“Safety?” Bruce voiced, quiet and incredulous, optimism stained bitter in that word._

_A second, and then…_

_“Constancy.” Natasha answered, even quieter._

_“Dependability.” Clint put in, running a finger along the scuff marks in the couch leather._

_“Rest.” Steve smiled, as faint and quick as ripples darting across a water surface. His shoulders loosened, his hands coming out from where they were folded behind his back to hang lightly by his sides. “We can help. We should. There are people that need us, situations that arise that sometimes we can’t get to on time, or can’t handle just by ourselves. We can do better together.”_

_“That’s the spirit, Cap.” The comment escaped, crisp and light, all the while Tony did a solid job of pretending like all of his stomach muscles, drawn taut with anxiety, hadn’t just unravelled on themselves. Relief was a beautiful emotion._

_“Having a single headquarters would also give us more time for training.” Natasha mused out loud, the sadist freak. “Practise some team maneuvers, bring the overall fitness and combat skills up to par_ _-_ _”_

_Clint immediately interrupted with, “Does that mean I can ricochet arrows off Cap’s shield?” accompanied Bruce’s indignant, “If you think you can convince me into **combat training** , you must be out of your_ _-_ _” Tony remained a strict observer in the commotion that ensued, watching over the situation like a proud parent, though with suspiciously squishy feelings arising in the chest area; when an unexpected voice jolted him out._

_“Alright?”_

_“Flippity gibbets, Captain, at least warn a man before you try to shock the thrice-operated heart out of his chest.” Steve’s smile broadened. A year or so ago, and he’d have probably assumed that the exclamation was a jibe at his Jurassic-era origins. He would have been right._

_“You seemed a little…lost in your head, there.” Steve slipped his hands into his pockets, leaning against the wall casually_ _-_ _something else that wouldn’t have happened a year ago._

_“You know me, just basking in my awesome.” And relief. Plus, not an inconsiderable amount of anticipation, excitement…fuck, Tony might even throw some happiness in there. Floating on the high of all of that stuff, you couldn’t really blame him for what he said next, no matter how uncharacteristic. “Thanks for going along with this.”_

_“It was a long time in coming.” Steve’s eyes were focused elsewhere, a little distant in the way they got when he was…remembering. But then he blinked and turned to look at Tony, something in that crystalline blue stare just…easing away, leaving behind something that resembled peace; and Tony couldn’t help smiling back. “Thanks for offering up your home.”_

_“I’m a generous soul.” Tony agreed, and watched Steve very visibly stifle an eye roll. An amused eye roll, though. Aw, his Capsicle was growing up so fast. “Speaking of offering things…you do know that I have some of the_ _-_ _nope, who am I kidding, all of the best tech in and out of business, yes?”_

_Steve heaved a patient sigh. “No, you may not tinker with my shield, Tony.”_

_“Not what I was referring to, althouuuuuugh_ _-_ _” Steve raised a quelling eyebrow, Tony desisted. “Fine, fine. Though you just **know** I’m going to have you all bedecked with the best Stark tech by the time we fly out for our first team outing…ooh, quinjets, SHIELD isn’t a thing now, we can totally do quinjets right, they’re all StarkTM anyway_ _-_ _”_

_“Point, Tony. I assume you were getting to one.”_

_“Surveillance tech.” Tony said, and watched Steve’s brows fly up to his hairline. “I could have JARVIS piggyback on any satellite any nation on this planet has put into orbit.” Except Wakanda because if not for the very real existence of Steve’s shield, Tony would be inclined to believe the entire country was a ghost story. “I’ve never really tried, but I could design a facial recognition program to knock CIA and Homeland Security on their asses, an algorithm that could process through thousands of faces in a single second…”_

_Steve’s expression diminished into something curiously blank. “That doesn’t sound very legal.”_

_“I didn’t get the impression you cared much for legalities when it came to finding your old war buddy.” Tony returned, and watched Steve’s face go from blank to blank and disquieting. “Or wasn’t it you who pulled government sanctioned Helicarriers out of the sky last spring? Anyways, not important. Point is, I can help you find…Barnes, was it? I can help you find Barnes quicker than any_ _-_ _”_

_“I have a friend on it.” Steve cut in. His expression didn’t change._

_“And I’m offering you another one.” Tony returned, after a beat._

_“Tony, I_ _-_ _” Steve hesitated, searching obviously for words before giving up and running a hand thoughtlessly through his hair. A second later, Tony startled when he felt that hand rest briefly on his shoulder. “You’ve already gone through a lot of late, I don’t want to_ _-_ _”_

_Steve’s eyes dipped briefly, to an area that would be scandalous for any woman but for Tony was just his reactor-less chest. Tony resisted the urge to fidget; Steve’s eyes clouded over further. A second later, the warmth withdrew from Tony’s shoulder._

_Steve brought up a smile all Captain America-like, lines of his mouth still limned with concern. “Just focus on your current projects, alright? I’ll come to you if I need to.”_

_“Okay.” Tony found himself acquiescing. All the kumbaya feelings of the past ten minutes aside, Steve’s hesitation to trust Tony with something so obviously important to him was understandable. They’d get there. He cast a glance over Steve’s shoulder to where Clint was still perched on the couch, crowing on about something to a heavy-lidded Natasha, while Bruce ducked his head and pretended not to have fun. “We’ve got an entire team ready for help, now.”_

_“We do.” Steve nodded, the heaviness lifting from his face in exchange for the faintest of smiles again; and Tony was brought back, rapidly, to the moment he’d been standing barefooted in the street in the dust after New York_ _-_ _looking at the gigantic, metallic ‘K’ lying at the foot of his tower, steel coated in ash, twisted and mangled. Feeling the sense of purpose rise slow and inexorable through his chest, tingling in his limbs, heady in his mind._

_Safety, constancy, dependability, rest._

_And then Thor trekked into the room, drawing the conversation at the couch to a sudden halt, yawning in his sleep pants and hair that would simply not quit. “Stark, I require your assistance with the water piping in my quarters.”_

_Tony could practically hear everyone gaping…fuck, he loved his life sometimes. “Sure, big guy. Also, meet the rest of the adopted_ _-_ _”_

_Family._

 

 

The paper crinkled between his fingers. Crease marks ran along the crumpled surface indiscriminately- lines as fine and spindly as spider webs, spanning the careful, neatly inked words on the page. The paper looked years old, stained yellow by exposure. It wasn’t. It would be completing six months today.

_Tony,_

_I’m glad to hear you’re back at the compound, I don’t like the idea of you rattling around a mansion by yourself._

His breaths were already starting to fall heavily. He forced it to a snail’s pace, air pulling at his nostrils and filling his lungs with each cold inhale. His jaw remained tight.

_We all need family._

…and that was it. The letter crumpled under his fingers, and Tony twisted his neck back on the headrest to stare at the ceiling, panels grey and dim. The light fixtures were bright though-scoring past his pupils and creating bright spots of blindness.

Two lines, and that was it. Enough to suck him out of that poisonous little cesspool of nostalgia that his trip down memory lane had prompted. So tempting after all, to give into that train of, ‘remember how we used to laugh and have fun and dream hopeful dreams. Oh, no wait, that was just me.’

Two lines. Maybe, with time, he wouldn’t need the letter at all.

His fingers smoothed the surface unconsciously, patting down the most recent creases. Folding it down and tucking it back into his pocket.

“Fabrication complete.” FRIDAY intoned, that soft soprano the only sound paring through the chilly workshop air.

“Perfect.” Tony could hear himself say. His knees shook slightly when he hoisted himself up from his chair. One brisk clap of the hands, to really jolt him out. “Alright Fry, enough of the mope-reminiscing. Show her to me.”

The wall at the far end of the room was already beginning to slide up-Tony strode over, refusing to let exhausted, runny leg muscles falter. The display slid fully open with a tiny pneumatic hiss, no privacy codes, iris-scans or fingerprint-matches needed. Tony had been holed up in the workshop for the past eight hours, and nothing was going to fool FRIDAY’s security except a clone from another dimension. FRIDAY would probably raise an objection to weird radiation from said clone even then.

Tony ran his eyes down the suit’s lines, illuminated by soft yellow light seeping in from the back wall. His heart was thudding.

“Cut the mood lighting.”

The yellow blinked out, leaving behind nothing but what was: the towering figure, lines more hard than sleek, more dangerous than flexible. Articulation points gleaming double with added reactor ports, all possible grooves and weaknesses protected with increased thickness. Impenetrable plates, overlaid with a red that was more oxblood than hot rod, lined with a gold dark enough to look tarnished; more metal than shine. A blinding circle of white at the centre.

“Up to par, boss?”

“We’ll only know after testing.” The harsh light made it almost impossible to see, but Tony could barely glimpse any blue in that circle. It pulsed on, white and powerful.

“I took the liberty of pre-empting heat or cooling issues-we should be facing no icing problems.” FRIDAY almost sounded excited. “I’d advise you to run simulations first, but JARVIS’ recordings indicate that you’ve never been more exhilarated than while blindly test driving a new suit, regardless of how indecorous he might have found your whoops-”

“Not that kind of testing.” The words escaped, and Tony lifted his right hand with a slight twist of the wrist, pure muscle memory at this point. Seconds later, there came the cold kiss of metal at his palm-pieces flying in from the Mark XLV, gauntlet forming seamlessly in the empty spaces around his hand.

“I don’t un-” FRIDAY began, but a sharp whine cut her off-the sound of a repulsor charging. Tony straightened his elbow, gauntlet pointed straight ahead. His fingers flexed as the pulse discharged; an unconscious reflex that didn’t do much since the armour was deploying the order.

A shower of sparks, a screech as repulsor energy met vibranium metal. He remembered the sound.

Charge. Blast. Charge. Blast. Two at the neck joint (cracked like eggshell the last time, so easy, so pathetic), three at the knees, two concentrated pulses right at the centre. Charge. Blast. Blast.

He was breathing heavily when the sparks littered to the floor again, a bright spot of heat stinging to life on his cheek bone. His elbow ached with the recoil; shoulder joints worn tight, sweat droplets crawling down his jaw like ants.

“Report suit integrity.” The words fell like bricks, flat and unrelenting.

A second of silence. Then, FRIDAY’s voice filtering through quietly, “Bleeding Edge integrity at hundred percent.”

Before his brain could pare through those words, his feet were already moving. Towards that corner, the corner of the workshop he’d tossed all of his other junk in openly, the corner he’d half thought of renaming, ‘I’m not a fucking coward’. The one with junk like a tiny glass box labelled- _‘proof that Tony Stark has a_ heart’, the model of Howard’s Stark expo, the half completed prototype shield.

And the real shield.

He stopped for a second before it before hating himself for the pause; picked it up with his gauntlet while loathing every pitiful part of himself that cringed with unease and unworthiness. Tony turned and walked back to where the armour stood, grip tight and cramped, footfalls coming hard and fast. No pauses this time-before his brain could weasel out with any contradictory orders, before his breath could freeze or heart could shudder, before laughter or banter or accusations or screams could ring false through his ears; he hoisted the shield over his shoulder and swung.

Right across the faceplate. A deafening clang…then nothing. The blank eyeslits of the Iron Man armour stared back, unaffected.

It was infuriating. He raised the shield over his head and struck, again and again and again. The join between the shoulder and the torso, the jut inwards of the hip, the vulnerable missile ports at the fingers and collar bones. Nothing. Not even a scuff. Vibranium left scratches on vibranium…but he’d found a way beyond that.

One handed was no longer enough. Tony brought his left hand in and swung double-handed, straight at the waist, only for the shield to shudder back so badly that it felt like his wrist bones had slid free of their sockets. He bit through his lip and powered through, skin on the inside of his left knuckles dragged raw with the force of the hits. Nothing, nothing, nothing. It was like pummelling away at a wall. A wall that wouldn’t relent, wouldn’t give up, wouldn’t listen no matter how hard and desperately you tried.

_“Oh god, Tony. Every time. Every time I think you’re seeing things the right way…protection? Is that how you see this?”_

Up and over his head-Tony brought down the shield with a vicious strength in his sinews he didn’t know he possessed, straight at the deceptively glass-like reactor casing. The recoil shuddered through his entire upper body this time, shoulders taking the brunt of it. It hurt; muscles crying out in protest, tendons twanging, salty sweat mingling freely with the metallic blood that spotted his lower lip, trickling inexorably into the matted tangle of his goatee. He spat to the side and swung at the light again.

_“You keep telling yourself that.”_

Once, twice, thrice. Three eardrum-piercing clangs and Tony staggered back by several feet, legs somehow still standing. Back slumped, shoulder pulling back, arm tensing-he let the shield fly for a last time, vibranium slipping out of sweat-stained fingers.

It sliced through the air, cutting parallel to the floor and hitting straight across the centre of the reactor case-hard enough to take off human and armoured heads. It ricocheted cleanly off, shield flying several metres before landing with a clatter, edge shrieking against concrete loud enough to wake the dead.

_“I can do this all day.”_

Tony strode forward, blood thumping in his ears, uncaring of knees that might give out at any second. A second’s falter, and his fingers were scrabbling over the smooth metal plates, eyes peering through sweat-laden lids. Not a scratch. Not a hint of abuse.

His fingernails curled inwards, driving into the articulated grooves like hooks. Strengthening his grip. If not, he might actually have fallen.

He didn’t recognise his voice, hoarse yet somehow unfeeling. “Up to par, FRIDAY.”

A second of quiet. The eventual reply came back tentative, but anything was better than pity. “It’s different from the way you used to test your suits.”

One breath. Two. Tony released a final exhale, hissing through his teeth before pushing himself back and upwards, the armour towering over his height as ever. The merciless lights were beginning to seriously bother his eyes.

“I don’t put much stock in how things used to be.” He took a few, unsteady steps backwards before growing sure of his feet, then turning to trudge painfully towards the exits. His muscles weren’t going to like him, hours come.

“No test drive?”

“My interfacing for this baby isn’t quite ready yet.” Okay, it wasn’t a tower, but what the fuck possessed him not to install an elevator to take him up to the main facility level? Security shmecurity, lack of time. Goddamn _stairs_ , fuck no.

“New A.I.?” FRIDAY enquired. She was getting better and better at not coming right out with her concerns about Tony’s general screw-y behavioural patterns. On some level, that thought hurt.

“…not quite.” Tony threw back, with a lightness of tone so forced that it even disappointed him. Hell, he needed sleep.

 And possibly new legs, considering his were going to fall off any second now- _why were there so many stairs_? Okay, two flights, but still. He dragged his feet up the last couple and leaned sideways on the wall to catch his breath, stitch in his side burning fiercely. A few controlled exhales and he pushed himself straight, sweat-sodden sleeve leaving a streak on the wall as he inched forward, automatic doors to the main floor sliding open with a swish.

Only to be greeted by a completely unexpected voice. “You look well.”

“ _Motherfucki_ _-_ _”_ The effort required not to call the repulsor back to his hand was superhuman. Tony was done with his fucking heart trying to pull a fast one on him; overdramatic little shit, simulating swan dives out of his chest, couldn’t just stop and be _done_ with it for once.

“Full time access to the common areas of the Avengers facility wasn’t so you could play peekaboo.” Tony was rapidly remembering why he’d given the finger to government-sanctioned assholes not too many years ago-they were assholes. Secretary of State or not, Ross and his unimpressed eyebrow could go screw themselves, however that was anatomically possible. “Be an ass on Halloween like everyone else.”

Measured footsteps followed in his trail as he stalked across the living area, heading towards the kitchenette. Once the refrigerator was opened and water bottle withdrawn, the urge to rest his brow against the cool surface of the door was overpowering-Tony resisted the urge, and kept off the scowl threatening to overtake his face with supreme effort. He had a _guest_ on the premises. Wouldn’t do to (display weakness) not play the part of gracious, courteous host.

He spun around. “Oh, you’re still here.”

Well, he’d tried.

Ross sported a thin smile. “Maybe try a circle of salt around the house the next time.”

 _This is not a house._ Tony smiled back, sharp and cordial. “Trying to endear yourself by projecting a sense of humour? I’m petty as shit though; I’ll just yell trademark infringement.”

The smile disappeared under that moronic moustache. Good. “As amusing as these conversations always are…”

“See, the Secretary of State needs to be skilled at diplomacy, and I didn’t believe you at all there-they might wanna review that promotion…”

“Tony, I don’t know what you’re trying to achieve here.” Ross’ expression was unchanging, a portrait of calm. “All of this hostility…maybe it helps you counter your fears of, I don’t know, selling out-”

“I didn’t sell out.” Tony interjected, smile just as cool and unchanging. The pain blanketing his body was a faint roar at the back of his head. “I did what I believed in. I still am. Fortunately for me, none of that includes a ‘be nice to jerks who threw your teammates in jail’ clause.”

“Ex-teammates.” Ross produced his smile again. Punching it off was sounding better and better by the minute. “And I’d remind you that said jerk kept your ass out of jail.”

Tony stepped forward, shoulders pulling back, because it was impossible not to. “Then maybe you too need to remember that I’m the face of this entire grand operation to legitimise powers. Poster boy for superhero obedience. I leave, and this whole thing falls flat on its face.”

“Or.” Ross parsed out, slow and thoughtful. “We make an example of one of the richest, most powerful men in the world. Successfully incarcerate _Iron Man_ , and surely the public’s faith in our ability to reign you all in is restored, right?”

Tony said nothing.

“Besides,” Ross continued, eyes sharpened. “Didn’t you _believe_ in all this in the first place?”

“In accountability, yes.” The words pushed out, Tony’s eyes just as unwavering as that day, so many days and years ago, when he’d pledged to the Avengers as something greater than himself. “To be held responsible when I screw up. When we all do. But not to martyring myself for the shitload of nothing that I did wrong.”

And Ross paused in response, for reasons undecipherable, his eyes scoping over Tony for several seconds. When he spoke again, there was no smile arrayed over his features like a production; but no hostility either. “Sometimes Stark, I wonder if you know yourself at all.”

His chest constricted involuntarily, squeezing away under an imaginary reactor. Words rose in his throat and they escaped too quickly, and not nearly as impassive as they should be. “Tell me you actually came here for a reason.”

“Shield.” Ross said, and Tony’s chest cavity might not have existed at all. Everything seemed to have collapsed inwards, and the ability to draw air and breathe seemed to be lost in the bargain.

His brain impossibly persisted in this oxygen deprivation, running a million miles a minute. _How did he find out there were no tapes I checked shouldn’t know about Siberia was it Zemo is he going to take it away too dangerous…_ “What about it?”

“In the light of the Accords being ratified,” And hell was Tony done to death with bureaucratic and legalese speak over the past few months, “we’re thinking this is the perfect time to re-legitimise it again.”

His brows pulled together before the sentence was over, “I don’t quite un-” wait. Wait wait. _Oh._ His voice ratcheted up in sharpness, “Is this the SHIELD of the morally grey super spies and triple agents?”

“The organisation that prevented a dozen world-ending events and protected several generations from harm? Yes, the very same.”

“Also the one that got infected by a neo-Nazi group and almost committed mass genocide.” Okay, so it wasn’t as bad as Ross finding out about the vibranium shield lying in his basement. Still not ideal. SHIELD had rotted away from the inside.

“You know it never went away. And so do the denizens of the world, what with the highly publicised rescue of the Sokovian citizens during Ultron’s rampage. SHIELD has and continues to do good, regardless of the Hydra debacle…we’re just planning on making it official.”

Tony smiled, quick and uncaring. Pain was beginning to reassert its existence in his muscles, not content with being ignored for too long. “You could have just called.”

“Maybe,” Ross acquiesced, but not before his lip quirked upward under that godforsaken moustache. “except I wanted to deliver the job offer in person.”

 _Job offe_ _-_ Tony’s eyes widened for a split second before narrowing down to almost slits. “Fuck no.”

Yeah, Ross was definitely looking amused now. What the hell was he playing at? “SHIELD will continue to function as it has been functioning all this while. You’ll just be the rubber stamp. Pretend some authority, liaise at times, smile nice for the world and make sure everything goes by UN regulations. You’re still technically a private individual Tony; this changes that. Gives you a formal place in the hierarchy, allows you a better position with which to negotiate with the other nations and their leaders as you’ve been doing for the past weeks. And with recent events, you’d be surprised with the upswing of public opinion of you and SI in general…”

Tony wasn’t listening to this. He refused to. “Do _not_ tell me you couldn’t come up with someone better for the job. More experience, more up to the-hell, someone who actually _wants_ to be Director.”

“There have been contenders.” Ross inclined his head. “In particular, Norman Osborn has offered up his services.”

“Who- _how_ is he even remotely-”

“In the wake of SHIELD and Hydra being lambasted openly in the public, there was a clear and obvious shortage of funds.” A small thread of what sounded like exhaustion snuck into Ross’ words. “Congress, or indeed any other nation’s government, could not continue giving money to SHIELD, not while its reputation was still so tainted-state budgets tend to be public things. An intelligence gathering organisation like SHIELD needs its resources: money for bases, weaponry, tech. Helicarriers aren’t built out of goodwill. Fortunately, companies like OsCorp have been much freer with their trusts and purses.”

“So you’re telling me you let private companies buy their way into a militarised organisation.” Tony’s words mixed incredulity and scorn with rare skill. “And now you’re putting the CEO of said company in charge.”

“Considering the Avengers have been privately funded by SI for over two years, I’m hoping you have a point to make other than hypocrisy.” Ross returned, sharpness shooting through his tone just as quickly.

“I still don’t see why a SHIELD agent can’t run their own damn spy nest.”

“SHIELD agents will still be running SHIELD.” That diplomatic smile was back in place on Ross’ lips. “We just can’t put someone who was on the payroll while Hydra was still a part of SHIELD, on the face of it right now. People know your face, it’s been ages since you’ve been accused of anything particularly reprobate, your stance on the Accords is making your approval ratings hold steady. We can even use your heritage to make a better case for you. The son of one of the founders taking over again-”

“That’s enough.” The words escaped before Tony could give them permission; but he probably wouldn’t have decided otherwise. His chest was feeling abnormally constricted again. He probably didn’t sound very convincing, words falling over themselves and not nearly firm enough, but he needed this conversation over _now_. “I’ll think about it.”

Ross’ smile possibly curved up into something real; Tony couldn’t care less. “I hope you do. In the wake of all the powered…outlaws, of late, we need to reassure the public, affirm our faith in being able to work with these individuals. Nothing does that better than putting one at the head of a newly reformed SHIELD.”

“Yeah yeah, I’ve gotten the party line, you can see yourself out now.” Tony muttered. The forgotten water bottle was sweaty in his grasp.

Ross didn’t argue further; Tony almost hated him for that. Wasn’t that what sharks did-swoop in for the kill when they smelt blood in the water? But there he stood, fingers deforming the plastic bottle in his grip, breathing heavy and blood leaking from the unseen cuts slashed upon his person, while Ross just…backed away. Footsteps drawing into the distance just as easily as they had approached, a door swinging shut, the Facility all emptied out again. Words left hanging in the air.

“Think about it.”

 

~

His feet were sticking out of the bedding.

He wasn’t even fully stretched out. He was kneeling on the mattress, neck bent at an absurd angle, arms straining for something placed on a moronically high shelf-probably a home job, judging by the nails hammered into the flaking plaster. _Probably his uncle’s doing_ _-_ Tony completed inside his head, and stopped his thoughts right there. Respect for the dead, and all that.

Peter’s feet were still sticking out of his pathetic excuse of a bed, knobby ankles and all, blindly groping around for a doodad he’d cooked up in eighth grade at summer camp. That very description made Tony’s brows shoot up into his hairline, but before he could back out, Peter had already hoisted himself up onto his mattress; head disappearing into wooden and metal chests that could be a serious health hazard if they fell from that height, whose bright idea was that anyway?

(Tony did hate to make snap judgements…but he’d bet it was the aunt. Hell, if _he_ registered something as a health hazard, it was pretty damn obviously hazardous. One nudge to the right, and that trunk was going to plow straight through the bed and the floor below. Probably flatten Aunt Petunia’s microwave downstairs too.)

Not that it would take much to decimate this bed. Peter shifted a bit to the side and the springs emitted another ghastly squeak. His feet were still waving around the air like berserk severed appendages. Tony twitched.

 _King sized bed, at least seven feet in length, upholstered headboard and padded side rails supported by a brushed stainless steel base, none of that wooden frame nonsense, though termites wouldn’t dare to set feet inside the Facility_ _-_ Tony’s jaw tightened, his mouth thinning out. “Did you find your miraculous invention of yore?”

“I’m trying!” Peter yelled back, twisting his head around; then erupting into a coughing fit from the little clouds of dust that exercise elicited.

“You’re inhaling the skin cells from the feet of your great-great-dead grandpa.” Tony observed, if only to drown out the death throes of the mattress squealing under Peter’s knees, and the specs in his head that couldn’t seem to stop- _Amerisleep Revere got pretty good ratings this year, three inch plant based memory foam, nine inches of supportive layers, it’s just twelve hundred dollars for Chrissake, that’s beggars money…_

“I can’t.” Peter exhaled in utter defeat, the sound of his chin clunking down on the wooden shelf clearly audible. That mop of hair more suited to the business end of a broomstick pulled itself out of the chests, the gangly frame almost plastering itself against the wall as he slid down to crumple on the bed that didn’t fit him.

“Does it turn stone to gold and produce everlasting, ever-fizzy Coke?”

“No.” Peter huffed out, his face not even visible from where he’d buried it into his negative hundred count cotton bedspreads. The proceeding words were a little quieter, “I made it when I skipped playing tug-of-war with the other kids.”

Then, almost inaudibly. “I liked it.”

_Dad, dad. Look. I made a circuit._

“What I don’t understand,” His voice began, entirely without permission. Peter glanced up, as if sensing this was something different, because the kid had goddamn superpowers even in this. “-is why you keep on fucking limiting yourself to the rules binding other people.”

He probably shouldn’t have sworn. Impressionable young mind and all. Ha.

Peter, for his part, looked back at him with steady dark eyes like he’d heard anything else other than a man in his forties concocting nonsense out of bullshit. Then, without a sound, he pressed a hand to the surface of the wall he’d just slid hopelessly down against, and began crawling up the surface like his feet were magnets.

Tony felt his jaw drop ever so slightly. Yeah. Yeah, that was exactly what he’d meant. He’d seen what the kid could do, but it was one thing to see a red-and-blue figure in spandex climbing up skyscrapers; another thing entirely to see Peter Parker act as if gravity was a mere suggestion, as though physics could take his permission to start behaving normally again. He didn’t blink as Peter hung upside down from the ceiling and swiped something out of the chest, then descend carefully with a triumphant grin pulling at the corners of his lips.

“Found it.” Peter declared, and that would have been enough except he followed it up with, “I keep forgetting that you-it feels good to have someone _know_ , you know?”

Self-conscious, pleased, seeking approval…there were many ways to describe that smile. Tony couldn’t think of any, because his mind had exploded into a tumultuous whirlwind of specs- tall-ceilinged bedrooms with skylights you could crawl through, a gymnasium built to withstand the workout of someone with the proportionate strength of a spider, a mechanics lab the likes of-no, the kid liked chemistry, he could call in some experts to consult on what people in _that_ bizarre branch of science liked; but he could still throw in a particle accelerator for fun-damn, the kid’s eyes would probably fall out of his skull when he saw Tony create vibranium in his baseme-

“Mr. Stark?”

 Tony blinked.

And just like that, the specs ricocheting off the walls of his head changed; morphing to older, more familiar forms. Tall-ceilinged bedrooms for gods unaccustomed to Midgardian dwellings, a gymnasium built to withstand the workout of people with super strength, a biomechanics lab for the likes of one of the best biologists in the world. A shooting range for a peerless marksman, an obstacle course for a fighter who never lost her balance. An art studio for…

“Where’s the bathroom?” His voice escaped, clipped and distant.

“Down the hall, door to your left.” That smile still hung around Peter’s lips, smaller and a little more uncertain. “Was there something in the salad that didn’t agre-”

Tony didn’t stand around to hear the end of that sentence, barely looking sideways at Peter as he ducked out of the doorway. It was less of a hall and more of a narrow corridor, crowded walls and a grey cement floor echoing hollowly under his feet as he crossed its length in three strides and put a hand out to tug open the door at the end. It resisted him, ill-fitted in its frame and refusing to give way, and Tony could distantly feel a growing pressure in his jaw, teeth pressing hard enough to splinter. The doorknob slid in and out of his clammy grasp; and Tony had to stop himself from biting his tongue through in a suffocating surge of emotion too sharp to be frustration.

Several more seconds of scrabbling at the knob and the door finally wrenched open with a bang and a shower of crumbled plaster, squealing hinges adding to the din. Tony stepped through into the white-tiled, dingy cubicle of a bathroom, the tiny window at the far end showing nothing but the tall walls of the neighbouring building, barely letting any light in. He knuckled around for the light switch and flicked it on, the bulb above his head flickering to life with a quiet crackle. The washbasin was barely a foot away, and it was another struggle of effort to open the tap, the packing nut and washer flaked over with jagged lines of rust.

The water was lukewarm, and he splashed it onto his face-rivulets running down contours that had gotten sharper and gaunter with the passing months. He swirled the chlorine-scented water around in his mouth, but the unpleasant taste coating the back of his tongue remained. He didn’t look into the mirror.

This wasn’t helping.

He rested a hand on the cool ceramic of the basin, fingers unconsciously digging into the spindly cracks on the surface. The other damp hand ran down his side to slip into his right trouser pocket, finding what it wanted with ease. It was the only thing there-he never brought his phone along when he dropped in on Peter.

The letter looked different in the dim, incandescent light of Peter Parker’s bathroom. The motions were practiced now, muscle memory; a flick of the thumb unfolding the page from quarters to halves, a turn of the wrist opening it up completely, then smoothening the creases out. Presbyopia was creeping up on his eyes and the words were closer to blurred smudges, but his mind remembered too.

And it was so easy to pick up where he’d left off _-_ _we all need family. The Avengers are yours, maybe more so than mine…_

Yes. Yes, yes. That made sense. Family didn’t leave each other behind, after all. Except when they get murdered. Except then.

_I’ve been on my own since I was eighteen._

Same, Tony thought. Same, same. Or maybe since when he was four, and learned how to talk. It was so difficult to define what ‘on my own’ meant.

 _I never really fit in anywhere–_ ha, Steve was just cheating off of him now- _even in the Army. My faith is in people, I guess. Individuals. And I’m happy to say for the most part, they haven’t let me down._

Inch by inch, Tony lifted his eyes from the page and watched them blankly stare back at him from the grimy mirror.

Well. The similarities had to end somewhere.

Howard. Maria. Obie. Obie. Obie. Natalie. Fury. Captain America. Himself. Bruce. Pepper. Clint. Natasha. Steve.

“Mr. Stark, are you okay in there?” Peter’s voice rang through the flimsy door, half ‘am I crossing a line’, half ‘I really hope Tony Stark doesn’t die in my bathroom’. And a decent amount of concern in there too. God. He was such a good kid.

Tony watched the man in the mirror, and told him what he already knew. He was currently crumpling up the evidence in his hand, shoving it down his pocket for the next time he’d need the reminder.

_You’ve been down this road before._

Another heartbeat, and the schematics for Peter Parker’s floor retreated deep within his mind; doors upon doors closing on the thought till Tony could push open the crappy one separating him from Peter, watch the kid’s clouded expression and respond with a smile that didn’t seem throttled.  “So did the slumlords make you sign a rental agreement? I hear things are pretty legit ‘round this side of Queens.”

“No, but they’re surprisingly lenient with the rent, so we make do.” Peter muttered in return, in that fantastic mix of deprecation and hyperbole he managed to bring to his humour. Tony never quite knew whether to take his jokes with the sincerity they came served up with. Plus, the kid had been apologising less and less these days which just made things so much bette-

“You should come around to SI on Monday.” Tony heard himself say, and just came up short of punching himself in the mouth in the seconds that followed. _Fuck. Moron. **Moron.**_ “I mean, not for-I don’t live there anymore it’s just-it’ll be good for your career. Probably.”

Peter’s face took on the part wary, part excited out of his mind expression that it had been resorting to for pretty much seventy percent of his conversations with Tony. “Career?”

 _What the fuck were you angsting about in the bathroom for ten minutes if you were going to call him around anywa_ _-_ okay, he had to commit here. Tony leaned a casual elbow against the doorframe, toilet bowl in the background, and received a drizzle of plaster in his hair for his efforts. “Yeah. Like an…uhm..internship, they call it? Yep, that. Work with R&D, see the best tech months before it goes into production, hell, come up with a good enough idea and I’ll make sure that it’s _your_ tech that goes into production-”

_“You know, you should come by Stark Tower sometime. Top ten floors, all R &D. You'd love it, it's candy land.”_

_“Thanks, but the last time I was in New York, I kind of broke Harle_ _-_ _”_

“Thanks Mr. Stark, but…uh. Wow, it’s so hard to say this.” Peter sent a hand through his messy bangs, eyes darting a million directions per minute. “I’m in school-”

“That changes nothing.” Tony waved an impatient hand, barely avoiding cracking a nail on the adjacent wall. Hell, there really was no space in here.

“-and I already have an internship. Signed an agreement and everything.”

“Where? At the local paper?” Tony arched an eyebrow, more than aware that he was being incredibly _Tony Stark TM _right now. “While I’m sure scanning paperwork and fetching coffee are the height of your ambitions at the moment, SI could-”

“At OsCorp, actually.” Peter ducked his head, but there was still a glimmer of pride in his eyes. “The orientation was last week, Norman Osborn addressed us and everything-”

“Wasn’t aware that Norman Osborn was a superhero.” Oh. Oh god. He hadn’t just said that.

“No,” A slight flush entered Peter’s cheeks, but he persisted in speaking. “but his company has been making incredible contributions to the pharmaceutical industry and they’ve been branching out into nanotechnology for a while…I’ve already joined and I just. I want to do applied chemistry in college and SI’s focus is mainly on the coding and mechanical engineering side of things-”

“And OsCorp is a better fit. I get it.” Tony could feel the smile stretching across his face, a fraying elastic band threatening to snap back to its original state at any second. He could feel the letter bunched up in the pocket of his slacks, paper rubbing roughly against the smooth cloth.

“I’m so sorry Mr. Stark, I can’t believe my life is coming to this-”

“Kid, it’s fi-”

“I _cannot_ express how much I appreciate you…taking care of me like this-”

“I’m not taking care of you.” The words escaped too fast, too direct. Tony watched the waving hands still, the light in Peter’s eyes shutter.

Tony said nothing.

“I mean.” Peter scuffed a shoe against the cemented floor-Tony didn’t know people actually did that. “I _know_. I didn’t mean to imply…I.”

Fuck, he could practically feel the humiliation steaming off the kid. Why did he always screw this up?

“Look kid.” Peter shrunk a little more into himself at the ‘kid’. Tony bit into his tongue. “I know you think I’m a…I don’t know _why_ you think-” Fuck, _words._ “Look, I knew about you for months before I even…the first thing I did was drag you into a goddamn fight with people having thrice the experience, I was _not_ taking care of you-”

“You were.” The words came, quiet and certain. Tony stopped and looked at the teenager with the ducked head, face still ruddy with embarrassment but with a curious steadiness to the gaze that had convinced Tony in the first place, that very first time. Peter met his eyes like it was the last thing he wanted to do, but like he wouldn’t drop it for the world. “I don’t understand superhero politics, Mr. Stark. I don’t know what exactly was going on at Leipzig, but I knew that you needed to stop Captain America from leaving. Badly enough that you’d recruit a sixteen-year-old to help you.”

“And when we managed to take the big guy down…you could’ve done that. Flown over, stopped them from getting into the jet. But the first thing you did…” Peter stopped to exhale a breath. He didn’t look embarrassed now. Just certain. “The first thing you did, was land and check up on me. To see if I was doing okay.”

“You could’ve broken your neck.” Tony’s voice was more expressionless than it had any right to be.

“No, I couldn’t have.” Peter’s lip quirked up, just a little. His gaze was clear and constant. “I was stronger than half the guys at that airport terminal, and the other half were on our side.”

“Cockiness isn’t going to land you a position on the team, you know.” And the room was as dingy as ever, bulb trying on in vain to illuminate the little space, but somehow it stopped looking so dim.

“Seemed to work for you just fine.” Peter returned automatically, his eyes widening at his own audacity a split second later. “I mean-”

“Shut up and revel in the burn, you whippersnapper.” Peter snapped his mouth shut, and somehow, inexplicably, Tony found himself matching the little grin that sprung at the corners of his mouth. “Hitting as fast as you talk is what gets you on the-”

A little beep from his shirt pocket.

Peter narrowed his eyes. “Is that an Avengers comm?”

“No.” Tony lied, eyes skimming over the little screen mounted in the device he’d fished out in a millisecond. His shoulders were already beginning to curl up in tension, the lightness in his chest dissipating as fast as it had appeared. The words weren’t anything he hadn’t seen before, but that didn’t stop them from being ominous.

_13:24:01, Rhodey_

_There’s been an issue._

 

(sometimes, if he thought back hard enough, he could almost remember a time he enjoyed being a superhero).

 

~

 

“It’s nothing new.” His tone was low and controlled, the way it got when Rhodey was trying to breathe normally. Tony didn’t know that about him, before. “Fleets of boats, crossing hundreds of miles of ocean to get to safety. Well, I say fleets. More like a procession of rickety wooden corpses that capsize more often than not.”

Another pause. Rhodey didn’t used to have these many pauses in his speech either. You couldn’t, not if you still wanted to be heard in a conversation with Tony Stark as a best friend.

“And then?” Tony didn’t know if it was considerate or cowardly of him to interject a question right then. Like Rhodey had paused for this very purpose-and not to breathe out a tight exhale because his back was screaming pain at him.

“They get turned away.” Rhodey replied simply. His dark eyes clouded over, because of course he was the kind of man who felt more for the suffering of others than his own. “The Australian government refuses to accept illegal refugees on its shores. Whether they’re fleeing from war or starvation, doesn’t matter. Thousands from Syria, Congo, Afghanistan…” _Sokovia_ , Tony continued silently within his head. “They’re rerouted and sent off to any number of the Pacific Islands, where they’re usually hosted in detention centres.”

 _Break them out. Fly them home._ Maybe he’d have voiced that, several years ago. When he’d believed he could do anything. Idiot.

“We’re not exactly in the best position to pressurise governments.” _Not when they’re still deciding if **we** should even exist._

“I know.” Rhodey smiled, more bleak than anything. Tony hated that look on his face. “That’s not actually the issue I had been referring to. Just context.”

A loose wave of the hand, and holograms came to life in the space above the conference table-blue and transparent lines sketching out an overhead map of what looked like innumerable, small landmasses scattered over limitless sea. “Papua New Guinea, Nauru, Manus island. Some of the prominent locations with detention centres. A closer look at some of the islands towards east Guinea…”

Tony leaned closer before he was even fully aware, eyes sharpening in growing pique. “I’m guessing you didn’t add the bright orange dots just for the pretty.”

“Pretty contrast, yeah.” There was no amusement to Rhodey’s smile. “Bismarck Sea, just off the coast of the main Guinea landmass. Suspicious activity in a couple of the atolls. Installations set up far from where any of the detention centres are supposed to be. Media coverage of the area is already restricted, because of all the remanded refugees-I’m guessing someone’s using it as a cover to carry out their own operations. Influx of boats, people being herded like cattle…who’s to notice if a couple sneak away, right?”

Or thousands. Tony leaned forward till his eyes were inches away from the smattering of dots, brain leaping a million miles per minute. “And since when is the UN proactive enough to send in the Avengers over ‘suspicious activity’?” To an area rampant with violation of human rights by government orders, no less. “Yeah, we’re bad news right now. But we’re still news.”

“Oh, this isn’t UN data.” Rhodey said, light as ever, and with a snap of the fingers the orange dots disappeared, leaving the map of the islands behind. “ _This_ is what the UN wants us to go help with.” And the diagram of the ocean heaved up, the holograms shuddering in place, long ripples originating from the centre and cascading outwards. Tiny figures appeared alongside the circular lines, seismic readings gone wild.

“Earthquakes.” Tony breathed. _Fuck._

“Aftershocks.” Rhodey corrected. “The big one hit an hour ago. The areas are ‘too remote’ for the armed forces to help, they say. Not immediately. So they’re sending us in.”

Of course. Made perfect sense, really. As Tony’s brain raked through the figures hovering in the air, trying to comprehend the magnitude of the disaster those innocuous numbers were predicting, a part of him noted all too easily the PR stunt this was intended to be. No villains to fight massive battles against, no collateral damage. Just costumed heroes saving the people buried deep underground. Coming down from their seat of power, uplifting the injured and needy. Who cared which benevolent power had shut those people up in those dark warrens anyway.

“There a reason you showed me the non-official data?” Mark LV? No, way too bulky. He’d need something sturdy _and_ with enough flexibility to make it through narrow passages. The Bleeding Edge interface wasn’t anywhere near ready… “Or was it just to make me jealous over what I can’t have? Because you know your existence is enough pooh bear-”

“We’re never going to get a better chance-the quakes would have thrown whatever operations are going on there in disarray too.” Rhodey wasn’t even looking at him. His jaw had been tight ever since they’d sat down. “You and…Vision can start the rescue efforts and I’ll-”

“No.” It was funny really, how easy it was to let feigned humour slip away. Tony didn’t even blink. Didn’t think. It didn’t need thought. “No.”

That jaw grew tighter. Rhodey turned his eyes from the images, expression barely keeping to patience. “Look, we don’t have time to talk about thi-”

“We’re not talking about this.” Tony sliced through his words without pause, or remorse. “You’re not going.”

“People are _dying_ -”

“You aren’t nearly recovered enough.” Tony didn’t think about how much ‘enough’ would be. No amount, probably. Rhodey didn’t need to know that.

Rhodey seemed to disagree, to put it extremely lightly. “I’ve been in recovery for six goddamn months.”

“And you will stay there for six goddamn more if I have anything to-”

“Look, you think you know what’s best for everyone. I get it.” Tony stopped short, something twisting abruptly in his chest. That was…those words weren’t anything like Rhodey. They were, because they were blunt and Rhodey was never afraid to get in his face about his issues…but they were also sharp. Sharp like the lines drawn tight on Rhodey’s face, the sharper, uneven breathing pattern, the shoulders coiled forcefully straight that betrayed a hell of a lot more than if they had been hunched over in pain.

A beat passed, and maybe there was a glimmer of regret in Rhodey’s eyes, maybe like the day he’d trashed Tony’s house and taken his suit away. Just like that day, it passed before Tony could confirm it, and wasn’t followed by an apology. Just Rhodey, inhaling cold and quiet air, talking steadily. “If you think I’m going to let you do this alone, you’ve got another thing coming. I’m not leaving you.”

 _I know. You never have. Not really._ Tony stared at his best friend’s face, and wondered why the thought left him joyless and hollow. _And where has that left you?_

“So, that’s settled.” Rhodey’s eyes flicked to the side, words pushing his way right through, the stubborn dickhead. “The UN are not green-lighting our little side mission though. Not with the world’s attention it’ll bring. And as awesome as our flying robot suits are-”

“Automatised metallic exoskeletons equipped with repulsor ports that enable free air suspension, you know this-” The response was automatic. Hell, Rhodey was good at this.

“-they aren’t exactly incognito.” Rhodey finished.

“So we’ll handle the rescue, and leave the sneaking around to people who’re a little less shiny and don’t attract magpies.” The words escaped without thought. Like the decision had been made unconsciously ages ago, and Tony was only being made aware of it now.

“Is it the Spiderling again?” Rhodey’s eyes narrowed so swiftly that it was almost hilarious. If the idea of finding something hilarious right now wasn’t hilarious. Or bipolar. “I swear Tony, if you’ve gone recruiting in high schools again-”

“The kid isn’t going anywhere near this.” Not near people deprived of all hope, crushed under rock and bars. People that stayed alive long enough to die just before you extended a hand to save them. Was it cruel and narcissistic and loathsome to even think that? Yeah, yeah it was. But Tony wasn’t feeling very well inclined towards the world today. Not with the decisions it was making. Not with the ones it was forcing him to make. “You know who I’m talking about.”

_“You’ll call.” Pale blue eyes that were beginning to regain their brightness, in a park somewhere in Queens. “You promise that you’ll be the one to call.”_

“Not with what they did, I don’t.” Rhodey replied, with nary a pause. Like it was that simple. That easy. To choose never to forgive, and expect the grand machinations of the world to let him keep to that choice.

“We’re not children, Rhodey.” He wanted to sound constant. Unaffected. But a thread of inexorable tiredness leaked into his words anyway. “Can’t let a dispute risk the loss of lives now, can we?”

Constant, unaffected. But he ended up sounding like a fucking bitter old man anyway.

Of course, Rhodey wouldn’t let it rest. Why couldn’t he? Wasn’t he supposed to be the sensible one? They weren’t the ones responsible for his legs. Tony was. And Tony was the only one personally wron-… _affected_ by them anyway. “We don’t have the time for this, we need to get to-”

But it was like Rhodey could hear his inner monologue, and plough through the bullshit and the vague pronouns even in there. “It’s him. Always. What the hell is it about Captain America that makes you so incapable of giving up on him?”

“I don’t know, maybe it’s the constant disappointment.” Tony shot back, more vicious than anything else, common sense thrown all to hell. Fuck, he was just so _done_ with all this. The words were escaping without reservation, whetted on the blade even as they were being made, and he got colder with every single one. “Reminds me of you sometimes, really. Best friend. Or Pepper, the great big love of my life. Or my father. Each and every one, with the same little patented expression, the crossed arms and the disapproving looks. _Really Tony? Must you, Tony? Haven’t you had enough, Tony?_ ”

A second of silence.

“All my life really, it’s been the same.” He was backing up from the table now, hand flying out in bigger and bigger gestures. Face growing flatter and more remote. It was a production, really. A production to hurt. “People in awe of the genius. In awe of the money. Not me though, not really. Too busy looking down their noses at the philandering and the sleeping around. Merchant of Death was a kind name, really. They never expected anything better.”

And then Tony stepped forward, better to deliver the fatal stroke, even as Rhodey stood there and watched him silently with tightened eyes. Because why leave your best friend in physical pain alone when you could wound him emotionally too? “You though. Pepper. Howard.” Tony smiled, icing on a poisonous cake. “Steve. You wagged your fingers at me, and I felt better. Because it had to mean that you thought I could do better, right? That I was capable of better.”

_“I know guys with none of that worth ten of you…you better stop pretending to be a hero.”_

“Indifference versus disappointment.” And he turned away, breaking the connection, teeth still bared in a smile. “And I thought the latter meant you couldn’t give up on me either. Honest mistake, right?”

At the corner of his vision, he could see Rhodey’s shoulders fall. Just a little, air leaving his chest as though punctured out.

Well, that checked off ‘hurting the strongest person he knew’ from his bucket list. What else could he knock off today? _Ambition can take you anywhere_ , Howard reminded him inside his head, and Tony could barely bite back a laugh.

Moments passed. When the words finally came, they barely pierced through the silence. “I’m sorry.”

“Don’t.” It was like the churning tar inside his chest had been sucked right out. He’d spat out all the sharp words, and now his chest was sitting empty, contracting uselessly. “UN orders must have come by now, we need to leave in an hour at mo-”

“You’re not a team player.” Rhodey said, and Tony’s chest pulled in painfully one more time. “You know that?”

“I’ve been told.” Tony fixed his eyes on a patch of wall, tone listless. It was okay. Rhodey deserved his chance at sharp words too.

“I don’t think you know how much. I don’t think anyone does.” Rhodey didn’t seem angry though. His tone was calm, no vindictive bite to the consonants as they left his lips. Unwavering, like stating facts of life. “You never actually were on a team, not even in school. Skipped through grades too fast, and even if the other kids invited you-you were too young to do well, and you hate being bad at things. Never even played a team sport. Too busy, too proud.”

Tony stared at his patch of wall.

“People hated being on group projects with you in college…you had built your third working model, and they were still flipping through reference books. So the professors just let you do your own thing.” There was something else to Rhodey’s voice now, the faintest, quietest trace of fondness. “I’d volunteered to be partners with you once, remember? First study session in the library…you never turned up, and I thought you’d gotten drunk off your face partying again. Lying incoherent in a pool of your own vomit somewhere, the irresponsible jerk. Cursed myself for having such a bleeding heart.” Rhodey breathed out a tiny laugh, shaking his head slightly. “Found you lying on the floor of your dorm, keeled over with dehydration, and this little mechanical arm whizzing all over the place, beeping crazily. Because of course you’d finished it all in a night. Remember?”

 _Yeah._ Tony was delirious, so he thought he must have been dreaming it up at the time-Rhodey bursting in on him in frustration, then the scowl on the face wilting until it resembled something like resignation, and amusement. The affection in that voice, _“You dummy.”_

“You don’t know how teams work, Tony. You never have. Then the Avengers came along, and you fought aliens together, and redesigned your entire home in the hopes they’d stay.” Another, not-quite-so-amused exhale. “And I was jealous for the longest time, till your house blew up and no one came to help and I realised that you still had no idea what a team was supposed to be.”

“Hiding secrets, asking no one for help, sacrificing yourself at every turn. I thought you’d stay this way forever. Until…the Accords.” And all for that Tony’s eyes were still fixed on that grey concrete, he could feel Rhodey’s gaze at the side of his face, willing him to look. “You discussed, and you negotiated. Argued and implored. Pulled every fucking trick you had, gave everything you could. Called in favours, bribed officials, made every promise. The guy who gave his address to a terrorist refused to fight till the last, possible second. Because the stakes were too high. Because your team needed you, even if none of them knew it. And you came through, and you did everything in your power to hold them together even if the world wanted to tear you apart.”

_“I don’t care. He killed my mom.”_

“You were miserable.” Rhodey said. “And I was so, so proud.”

Even if he wanted to, he couldn’t look away now. Tony stared on at the wall, eyes unblinking, moisture pricking at the corners of his lids from the force of keeping them open.

“My best friend.” There was no mistaking the affection in Rhodey’s voice, even with how quiet and withdrawn it sounded. There never was. Constant and unwavering and never leaving and all those stupid, stupid things. “The genius who revolutionised the world of artificial intelligence and robotics, but who still considers clean energy his biggest achievement. The business man with billions of dollars to his name. The superhero who saved a planet. I never thought I could love something more than flying a plane, but you gave me War Machine and….” Rhodey’s eyes were glimmering in the light. “And I could _help_ people. I can still _walk_ because of you. All of that, and still I’ve never been fucking prouder of you than I have in the last six months.”

 

A beat. Two.

“So I am sorry. That I had a part to play in letting you think, even for a second, that disappointment was the best you could do.”

 

Tony blinked, again and again, heart thundering distantly in his chest. When he could hear himself speaking again, his tone was impossibly casual. Anything else wasn’t permitted. “Thanks, Rhodey.”

“You’re welcome Tones.” Rhodey returned, just as simply. And for a second there, the room was peaceful.

 

He couldn’t let it rest like that. Of course he couldn’t. “Why do you think I haven’t given up on him?”

Another second of quiet.

Rhodey didn’t avert his eyes, or pretend. “There a reason you still have that letter in your pocket?”

Tony pulled his eyes away from the wall, shifting in place and feeling the crumpled paper in his pocket prickle at his skin. Past the window, the sun was finally setting.

_To bring me back to reality. To stop me from repeating my fuck ups._

Tony smiled, quick and painless. “To remind me that it wasn’t worth it.”

 

 


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> That was a stupidly long hiatus, I do apologise XP But to make up for it...extra long chapter! Woo! I'm also starting to realise that the meat of the plot of this story is going to take some time to get rolling, and we're going to have a lot of Avengers talking and communicating in the meantime. Because they desperately need to do it, and I am happy to provide. And because rebuilding trust is a tag XP
> 
> Notes: there are some topics raised in this chapter that are potentially sensitive, and neither the characters I write, nor I claim to be the best people to write about them, but we're doing our best. Do contact me if you think I could have handled something better, but I'm also making no apologies for what's up. Factual details therein have been researched, tell me if I got any of those wrong.
> 
> A couple sections are unbetaed, I'll probably revisit once I'm a bit more coherent. Quotes taken from the Avengers (2012) and Captain America : Civil War (2016), as well as from the prequel to this story, namely Clint's little monologue.

 

 

Sam had never been a particularly religious kind of guy.

Like every other set of middle class American parents raising a kid in the hullabaloo of a bustling city-Mum and Dad’s intentions of raising him to be a simple, God-fearing man were a little trampled over by a lifestyle unsuited to much devotion of time to the theological side of things. They celebrated Christmas. Attended Mass on Good Friday and even hung around to hear a sermon or two, depending on their overall feelings towards the community on that particular day of the week, and average guilt levels.

Sam’s mother had a small wooden cross, hung on a simple gilt chain around her neck. Sometimes, when she’d take it off for showers, she’d forget to put it on again; and there it would lie, entangled in stray hairs on the ceramic of the wash basin, to prick at her conscience when she’d come to floss the next morning.

Suffice to say-Sam had never quite been one to turn to the Almighty for assistance. (The seventeen hours straight spent in a chapel when Riley was still…struggling in intensive care didn’t count. Religion wasn’t meant to be just for crises. Otherwise it wasn’t religion.)

He respected it, though. The idea of faith, and belief. Sometimes, humans were far more capable of putting their trust in someone, something else, than themselves. He’d seen it often enough. Patriotism-faith in the country. Faith in the people that fought at your back, your unit. And yes, faith in a higher power. He’d be remiss not to recognise the power it wielded, to bring one back from the edge of crevasses they’d been pushed to by life and its miseries. When people spoke about the strength they derived from their unshaken belief in a benevolent power that looked over their heads while they slept…he listened. On those days, God felt like the sum of humanity, and its purest parts.

He’d admired Steve for his faith, too. In retrospect, it all felt a little ironic.

Religion wasn’t meant to be just for crises. But the two seemed irretrievably entwined, because it was when the skies darkened that people needed their faith the most. To hold on, and thus emerge on the other side, faith varnished and renewed and shining…or cracked right through the centre.

“How long till we reach?”

Sam’s lips curved to the side, quick and reflexive, almost deprecating. “T minus thirty.”

Because what did it say, really, about him-on a plane with a rogue Captain America, thinking about God and misplaced faith.

(So much of his work at the VA had been about leading the rootless vets to identify their own issues and problems. Flaws in their belief systems. Being honest to yourself took you a quarter of the way to recovery.)

(And for all of that, Sam still knew better than anyone the importance of-sometimes-keeping yourself deceived.)

Steve moved at the corner of his vision again; Sam twitched. It wasn’t a fidgety kind of motion-not really. The Army stamped that out of you in mere weeks. But Steve was still...moving, the leather of his gloves creaking out of sight with every flexing motion of his knuckles. Nothing about those motions: running his palms down the Kevlar weave stretching over his thighs, undoing the Velcro of his gloves before pulling it down even tighter, adjusting the straps straining over his uniform…none of it was overtly fretful, or even restless. It could just as well be a man doing cursory checks before swinging down into a potentially hazardous situation.

Except it had been over three years since he’d met a cocky blonde breezing by him on his morning jogs, and Steve was a lake of still water before any op. Always had been. Sure, his mind could be churning up and falling to pieces on the inside, but he’d disciplined his body too well. There was nothing restless behind Steve’s motions now except the very _fact_ that he was moving-except the blaring, blatant lack of purpose behind every adjustment of a buckle, every mounting creak in the silence as armour and Kevlar plates flexed and released. Another twitch, and Sam’s eyes darted to the side and down-ineffably caught by bare fingers curling and flexing uselessly in thin air.

Something tightened in his throat. Sam cleared it-inescapably loud even over Steve’s rustling and the quiet hum of the plane. “We…ah. We working on Vision’s intel again?”

The phrasing made it sound like a regular occurrence-it was anything but. One errant blip, one in-and-out op in St. Petersburg that barely took an hour. It was…surprising how well the system was working really, if one functioned on the assumption that they’d be called in everytime something had gone wrong. Which meant it mostly hadn’t.

Sam wondered how Steve felt about that.

Either the system they’d turned their backs on was working just fine, or the current authorised Avengers chose to sacrifice lives and property rather than call the runaways for help. The second option seemed unthinkable-but in quieter moments, the erring thought that Steve would prefer it over the first passed his mind. Times like those, Sam usually dislodged it from his head and accepted in no uncertain terms that being cooped up and on the run was driving him insane.

(Except…well. Didn’t men always doubt their faith?)

Steve had been silent for quite a while. The sound of Velcro cracking free from its crackly grip permeated the air again; the pale skin of Steve’s wrist gleaming in the light of the cockpit. He was in his old SHIELD stealth suit-the one Sam had first glimpsed Captain America in, and they’d gone on the run from the government for the first time. Not an upgraded one, the very first suit. Stark made suits didn’t have Velcro.

“No.” The word finally hit the air, quieter than a whisper. Steve stared at the blinking lights on the instrument panel, eyes stilled. “It was Tony.”

 _He still lets you call him that?_ But of course Sam voiced nothing out loud, and Steve’s pale eyes dropped further, searching for a thing that couldn’t be found on the cockpit floor. The thin line his lips had compressed themselves into curved up in the facsimile of a smile. “Bypassed straight into voicemail, left a message. Which I guess still technically meets the terms of our agreement.”

 _What agreement?_ Sam didn’t ask, nor did he further say- _so he doesn’t actually talk to you at all._ Just that one day, Steve had apparently disappeared from his then-safehouse and somehow had a tete-a-tete with Tony Stark. Sam didn’t know the details of what had happened that day, just as he didn’t know what had occurred when he’d sent Stark off on a wild goose chase from the Raft and only Steve and Barnes had returned. Steve didn’t offer to share, and Sam didn’t ask.

(The importance, of keeping oneself deceived. Sometimes, it was more than just sometimes.)

“What did he say?” Sam Wilson, concentrating on the relevant facts. Fucking _bravo_. His expression didn’t change in the slightest.

“Gave a set of coordinates. Said that a number of people needed to be rescued from cave-ins caused by earthquake aftershocks somewhere off the coast of Guinea.” Steve sealed the flap of his glove and curled his fingers into an empty fist again. Maybe not fidgety, but there was something strangely aimless about that blue stare. Like he could hear the voice inside his head and was just repeating it to himself, over and over. “There’s also some suspicious activity going on in the neighbourhood, and there wasn’t going to be a better time to investigate. And to bring Falcon.”

Sam could hear it too, without ever physically listening to the message. “Bring Falcon,” the Manhattanite accent curling sharply over the ‘c’, truncated abruptly at the ‘n’. He could see Stark’s cold eyes as he voiced the message, dark irises just as aimless.

T minus fifteen.

Steve’s hands opened and closed over empty air again, and Sam wished he could shut his eyes. In the first few months, T’Challa had offered to build another shield. Steve had refused. He’d also refused any kind of hologramic, positronic version, and said he remembered how to fight with his hands. And this was the biggest block of unknowing that Sam stumbled against on a regular basis-what kind of exchange had Captain America dropping his shield? What kind had him convinced not to pick up another one again?

The kind that made him move constantly and without purpose, against restraints that weren’t physical, that made him create noise in silence. Energy pushed inwards, reverbing uselessly, without direction or drive. The kind that made best friends of fear and hope, playing hide and seek in a stoic jaw and unseeing eyes.

“We might reach earlier than expected.” Sam let out as gently as he could, and Steve drew in a breath and didn’t release it. The last streaks of a dying sun were shooting over the horizon, making his eyes gleam glass-pale and brittle.

A last, useless flex of the fingers: and Sam could almost feel the frantic energy being drawn back into Steve, the broad frame stilling and curling into itself, concentrated and readied. An exhale, and that chin lifted in determination. _Whatever will be will be._ “Very well then.”

Sam smiled, faintest of the faint.  “Steady,” was all he said, and they began on their thousands of feet long descent.

 

 

 

The red-and-gold gleamed dully in the gloam, like the last remnants of a sunset that had long disappeared into the indigo sky. Next to it, the burnished grey of gun-metal was barely visible.

Sam stumbled as he landed; just the touch of a stagger before steadying himself, wings folding silently behind his back. There was no movement by his side, and he’d almost be fooled into thinking that there wasn’t anyone standing there at all-except for Steve’s tall, broad frame caught in a standstill, looming at the edge of his vision.

 _Vision_ _-_ and Sam’s traitorous eyes flitted back to the hulking figure of steely grey that almost blended in with the black night sky. It was like he was the only human there- anxiously shifting from foot to foot while three figures stood statue-still beside and across, weight bearing down upon the air, refusing to move ahead. He’d thought…he’d thought it would be Vision there instead, but he was staring into the emotionless mask of War Machine, and remembering a whoosh of burning heat as he curled into a smaller target in the sky and the beam hit…

The beam hit.

Sometimes it was important to keep oneself deceived. To focus on the restless motions of your best friend on the flight over, and not think of what was coming ahead because Sam’s mind was a blaring field of static now-as the cold light behind War Machine’s eyeslits stared back at him, and he couldn’t bring himself to raise his head.

Crawling silence. He wouldn’t know if it had been seconds or minutes, while he watched Steve’s gloved hands flex uselessly at the edge of his sight, twice and thrice and four times. Watched his lips flicker minutely, eyes affixed to a point ten metres to War Machine’s right, where a circle of light glowed in a scarlet-and-gold chest. Witness an indrawn breath, sound just about to take birth-

“The installation is a couple of miles to the west, on the nearby atoll.” And while a part of Sam’s mind was paying attention to War Machine’s words plowing through the stagnant air; a bigger part still caught on Steve’s jaw clicking shut, on the dull _clunk_ of War Machine’s boot as he stepped forward and just a little in front of Iron Man, sightline to the arc reactor severed abruptly. Saw Steve’s shoulders padded with Kevlar curl in, just half an inch, as he made the same realisation. “Iron Man has the exact location, Falcon can fly over with him to check it out.”

And despite the impassive faceplate, expressionless and wrought of titanium, despite the voice modulator…Sam still heard it. The lightest, most delicate touch of contempt on War Ma-on Rhodey’s words. “Rogers and I can handle the civilian evac.”

A building whine of repulsors, and Steve flinched back, just the slightest jerk of movement. Iron Man’s helmet whipped to the side on reflex, but he said nothing. The sound mounted in pitch, the light growing brighter-and he took off, a streaking jet of red in the expanse of the night.

Sam’s wings curled out in reflex, stirring the still, muggy air in a graceful flap. War Machine had turned his face away, booted clunks thudding through the ground as he turned toward the black horizon. Steve…

Steve’s head was bent, the fading light from War Machine’s repulsors catching on the bare skin of that chin. Back curled in, hands hanging uselessly by his side. Cerulean eyes lifted to meet Sam’s, dark and shuttered-and Sam could feel the pain lance through his own chest, quiet and hopeless. _I’m sorry._

Steve gave him a minute nod, and lifted his chin, jaw firming up. Sam’s wings unfolded to their fullest span, and he pulled in a breath. Seconds later, the ground had shifted away from his feet and he was careering away-cutting through shear and the blast of wind in his ears, following the scarlet trail.  

It seemed like seconds till he landed again-wet sand crunching fitfully under his heels. Gigantic blocks of sandstone and basalt cast shadows down on the beach, looming up on either side of the sheltered bay. The ocean gleamed silver behind his back, and grey sand spread forward in miles before his toes, reaching the black walls where moonlight gleamed slickly off the mossy, sea-sprayed rock. It was deathly silent, but for the lap of the water. His comm was quiet-Steve wasn’t making a peep. The line seemed switched off.

“How much more inland?” He asked, and the voice carried over the salt-heavy air too easily.

“It’s right here.” Iron Man’s modulated tones answered, the machine rasp staticky over the ocean breeze. He was standing maybe fifty metres ahead, but off to the side, by the obsidian-black rock overhang. The gold of his suit was cast pallid in the shadowy, unearthly light.

“There’s nothing here.” But sand and rock and a clump of three trees, with fissured bark and straggly leaves, sleeping at the far end of the beach. Sam could hear his own, whistling breaths.

“Step forward,” Iron Man said, instead-and Sam did it, not thinking of how floodlights could pour on them at any second, the click of a hundred rifles arming themselves, the blare of a foghorn asking him to put his hands up and surrender, a set of handcuffs ready to snap on his wrists and toss him back to the bottom of the ocean.   

Sam moved, not thinking of traps that were too easily set, his booted feet sinking into the scratchy sand. And they kept sinking-his left foot was plunging deeper than the right, coarse granules piling to the level of his ankle, till his heel hit something hard and flat and solid. Something sparked off at the back of his brain, and Sam pushed his right foot forward-and it sunk even deeper, sand brimming up to mid-calf before his heel found something hard and load-bearing again.

A faint _click-click_ thrummed through the air, the EXO wings unfolding from his shoulders and drawing up high. Sam moved them-two harsh beats, slicing through the air-and the wind was alive with sand, hard and abrasive. It settled a minute later, gradually drifting to rest on the gravelly beach-and revealed a set of cemented steps, trailing downward into the ground, end unseen and buried under sand.

“Arrogant bastards.” Iron Man spoke out loud, muted and almost admiring. Three strides and the sound of metal against concrete echoed hollowly through the beach, Sam watching on carefully as the red-and-gold figure limned in light stepped in front of him and steadily disappeared down the darkened stairs. Two seconds, and Sam followed on his heels, wings folding inward and back with barely audible _snicks_.

The sound of a repulsor charging hummed through the air-Sam could feel the hair on his arms prick up, goosebumps breaking over chilled skin. A quiet, focused blast-the colour of gold sand and concrete walls flashing in the sudden burst of light-and then everything faded back to silver and shadow again. Leaving behind a gaping maw of blackness that led below ground.

The air was far less musty in the passageway than he’d expected-there were probably built in ducts, for better circulation. The blast had caused the barrier heap of sand to blow inwards, plastered to the wall and crunching under their feet, but far less in volume than expected, probably as the ceiling had already begun and there was only so much sand that could occupy a space. A space that terminated in a door, as it turned out-also helpfully taken out by the blast. The corridor stretched on ahead, blanketed black and seemingly endless.

 _You see any light switches around?_ He could have asked, the same kind of purposeless chatter that populated any Avengers comm, _I’m getting Resident Evil vibes over here._ Except this Iron Man would just point out in a monotone that there weren’t any visible light sources around, even though they would have had to light up this place somehow. He didn’t look too distant from a character in a horror tale himself-you couldn’t look at him straight, the only source of light, harsh and blinding, in a passageway of darkness. The light from the circle in his chest cast shadows underneath a glinting, square, deathly sharp jaw; light emanating from palms encased in blood-gold metal gauntlets that could punch through walls.

“You think those are from the quakes?” Sam asked instead, chin bobbing up towards the cracks wreathing their way up the walls. Iron Man paused, repulsor light darting over the patch of wall-there were no jagged edges of plaster visible, just solid concrete and spider-like cracks that were clearly more than skin-deep.

“Possibly.” Iron Man assented, and walked forward. A building whine, and Sam barely had two seconds to prepare himself before a deafening _clang_ assaulted his eardrums; heart pounding at a hundred beats per minute and muscles still frozen in a backward flinch. Right, another door.

 _You mind warning me the next time?_ But Iron Man might have laughed, harsh and staticky. Or worse still, he might not have laughed at all. He might have pretended-continued pretending-to be a hollow metal shell, with no man inside.

They moved onward. The room opened up-it was definitely a room now, made clear by the brush of moving air against his prickly skin and the dance of ghostly lights over walls and ceilings as Iron Man moved this way and that. Sam raised a finger to tap over his visor-it wasn’t night vision per se, but the basic infrared sensors indicated the lack of anything remotely living within a mile of this point. Which was absolutely no reason to relax one’s guard, warrens like these messed with sensors more than anything else.

“No bug and roach life detected…there’s barely even any bacteria.” Iron Man confirmed tonelessly. He was moving to the far left of the room, light getting smaller and more distant. “It’s unnatural. There was definitely something here.”

“You think they were driven out by the quakes? Or they anticipated us, somehow?”

“This isn’t a slap dash job.” Light knocking, like metal fingers over glass. Iron Man tapped at the far wall one more time, then prised it to the side-it was a sliding door. Stepped through: Sam could hear boots striking the ceramic of tiles. A lab then, maybe. “I can’t find any ports, forget actual systems and hardware that I can hack into for information. No cabinets with physical records to ransack. There isn’t even a single piece of furniture in this place.”

A silent swivel, and Iron Man was pacing back, glass door left open behind him. “There was something here, but they haven’t been here in a while. They left, and had a decent amount of time to wipe all traces of their presence.”

Iron Man stilled, helm turned to the side. It was impossible to pinpoint what those blank eyeslits were looking at. “We’re probably going to find nothing else in here, but we should still physically check the rest of the rooms to confi-”

“How’s Colonel Rhodes?”

Silence.

Sam could hear his breathing, in the quiet. Steady and unchanged, chest lifting and falling unimpededly. His heart was still running at above eighty beats a minute.

Well. He hadn’t said any of the rest of it. Figured something would escape eventually.

“You’ve seen him tonight.” Iron Man finally responded, helm still turned away. His joints were fixed in place, and the utter lack of clicking gears and soft hums alerted one to the utter lack of movement. “He’s doing fine.”

“I didn’t see him tonight.” Sam didn’t lose a single beat, voice maintained at the same, even cadence. There wasn’t much eye contact to be established, when you couldn’t see the other person’s eyes. “Or you. The helmet…hides more than it-”

The quietest of _snicks_ , a plate sliding free. There wasn’t much to be seen in the near non-existent light, except the gleam of dark eyes.

“Better?” Stark asked, voice saying nothing.

Sam didn’t blink. “How’s he doing?”

“He’s doing fine.” Stark repeated, words holding less emotion than the synthesised voice of Iron Man. “He’s…recovering.”

Sam caught that pause. Stark probably loathed the life out of that pause. It was why he was turning around, striding away and ducking under the doorway towards the next room. Sam didn’t bother following, voice calling out at the disappearing armoured back, clear and unwavering. “You know it isn’t your fa-”

(the interruption didn’t come as a surprise. His stomach twisted with unease, with the utter _naivete_ and trite nature of the words lifting off his tongue…but he couldn’t have this conversation with a shell.)

So no. Not a surprise at all. The ceased motion, or the rapid turn. Sam couldn’t see the thin smile Stark was sporting in the darkness, but it made its presence known. “I do.”

“And so should you,” There were just bodiless lines of light in the air visible, where the armour plates articulated, and a ringed blue-white circle. For several moments, there was just that-and then Stark loomed out of the dark, eyes cold and flashing. “this whole ‘wise counsellor’ bit you have going…very entertaining, but some of the most fucking condescending _shit_ I have ever come across.”

Sam didn’t move.

“I do know. It isn’t my fault, won’t ever be my fault, I couldn’t take responsibility for it if I tried.” _And I did_ , and Sam didn’t need the cover of light to read those eyes. Stark’s lip twitched derisively. “Rhodey was standing by his principles, not just by me. I could’ve turned tail and ran, picked another side…and he’d still be there. Falling to the ground, robbed of full use of his spine, fighting the good fight.”

Did Stark practice saying these words in a mirror? Flung them out, blunt and masterfully crafted, to curve back on himself and inflict the maximum amount of pain that it was possible for a human man to bear, and a lot more besides.

“When you’re off being a shrink to people-”

“I’m not a shrink.”

“Couldn’t give less of a fuck.” The reactor light gleamed off the whip-sharp curve of whitened lips. Stark offered up another smile for the gallows. “Do you guys make up scenarios? Imagine ways in which things might have gone, hypothesise?”

“Sometimes.” Sam’s breathing seemed stilled, for the minute.

“Alright. So hypothesise with me, here-” And had Stark even been trying, at all? Staying inside the shell-or had it suffocated him so much within the past months that he’d gladly toss it aside, let it crumble at the slightest pressure. Or maybe Sam was being facetious and this pressure wasn’t anything remotely resembling slight.

“A world where the distribution of power isn’t staggeringly unequal. Where groups of people aren’t free to make decisions that impact the rest of the world without any input, just because they were blessed with that power. That they have to answer to…” And Stark’s breathing had barely stepped up at all, words falling swift and fitful, eyes unseeing (and he’d known it, even on the plane. How had he known it?) “They have to answer to another power, but we won’t call it a higher one because this hypothetical world doesn’t have fatalistic concentrations of….yeah you guessed it, fucking power, in any one place, be it shadowy spy organisations or a Security Council or _superheroes_ or goddamn Americans.”

One beat. Two. Sam didn’t avert his gaze. “How did we get there?”

“Why, a leader took up the cause of course, as one always does.” Stark lowered his chin, stared at the light emanating strong and clear from his own chest. "We’ll call him…Captain America. He steps out of the annals of glorious history…looks around the world today, and he doesn’t like what he sees. The rampant destruction, the breaking of sovereign laws, the unchecked power, the sheer presumption and _condescension_ displayed by these groups…thinking they know better than the people of the world how exactly they need to be saved.”

“And he’s renowned for these kind of things, you know. Standing up for the little guy. Fighting against bullies.” Stark’s lips curve up, just the slightest. “He’s done it his whole life, and isn’t being hypocritical about it. And he seems reasonable, and fair, and just, and noble, and people listen to him, and understand his concerns, and marshal under his name, and change happens…and. And. Maybe there’s even a guy called Tony Stark who’s fucking _privatised world peace_ and hasn’t played well with authority all his life, and wants to be the lone gunslinging hero of his own fucking show but that’s a mere blip on the landscape because who the hell would listen to that guy when there’s Captain America?”

It was almost easy to understand Steve’s behaviour on the plane, after this. Who could sit still, after words lit an itch in your bloodstream and guilt a pit in your stomach and there was absolutely nothing that you could do?

“And so the world changes.” Stark whispered. He looked…like nothing at all in the half-formed darkness, but besotted by this idea of a reality where he lost. Again. “People held accountable for their actions, because it’s the right thing to do. Because Captain America said so.” Another twitch, and those eyes were back on Sam. “Tell me, does that sound like a feasible reality to you?”

_Maybe._

“With my childhood history, you’d think I’d have gotten over it…but.” A little laugh, and Stark seemed to have snapped out of his little delirium. Except for his unreadable eyes. “I didn’t do much wrong, except for the crime of not being Captain America.”

Walls, bars, cells. Red sparks of magic snuffing out into nothingness. “That’s an oversimplification.”

“Maybe.” Another quicksilver smile, Stark’s eyes searching Sam’s own features with unerring accuracy. “You ever wish you’d done things differently?”

 _You sure about this? Because the people that shoot at you wind up shooting at me too._ Sam smiled tiredly. “Doesn’t matter. It doesn’t change things if I know now, and it wouldn’t have changed things had I known anything back then.”

“Yeah, s’what I thought.” Stark matched Sam’s tired smile, wrinkle for wrinkle. His eyes were still unreadable. “It’s not my fault, and Rhodey stood by my side because he believed in what we were working for. Everyone on my side did. They had logic, and reasoning, and practicality, and principles. I should feel more…righteous about that, actually.” A breath full of exhaled mirthlessness. “But because I’m a selfish dickwad, sometimes I wish they’d chosen a side out of loyalty. Stayed for me.”

_Like they stayed for Steve. Left…for Steve._

And Sam stepped forward, to say what, he didn’t know-except something small and cylindrical caught under his shoe, unsettling his heel. He blinked at Stark for a detached moment, foot moving back instinctively-and Stark ducked down, moving much quicker than a man wearing tons of armour should. A second later, his shoulders uncurled and spine unbent, and Sam stared at the implement held aloft delicately between two fingertips.

“Seems like forgetting pens is a universal phenomenon even baddies aren’t exempt from.” Stark’s mouth was working on autopilot, his gaze was caught by the same tiny inscription on the smooth metallic surface. “Speaking of baddies. Did you know they commissioned their own stationery?”

Tiny letters, engraved in copperplate. Just three. AIM.

And as if in response to the question, the earpiece fitted into Stark’s earlobe (in addition to the helmet? Strange redundancy) burst into flickering sound.

Sam watched Stark tilt his head slightly to the right, the rapidly changing, increasingly complex microexpressions contorting his face, the silently mouthed _“fuck”._

“Army’s here ahead of schedule.” And the shell was back in place again, features compressed into the flatness of professionality. “You need to grab your plane, and get out of here.”

Sam didn’t wait for the completion of the sentence. His finger was back, tapping at the side of his visor, eyes affixed on a distant wall. “Cap. Come in. Cap.”

“You can’t contact him.” Professionality, but with a well of disturbance boiling just below the surface, out of sight. This wasn’t just a minor inconvenience. Real shit had gone down. “You need to get your plane and fly-”

“Outta here, I got that.” Deep, full breaths. In and out. “Why can’t I contact Steve?”

The minutest flinch, at the name. Stark didn’t appear outwardly anxious, but there was a tightness to his sentences and movements. “He’s…there was another cave in. During the evac. Rhodey…got out but Rogers is still-”

“I’m not leaving without him.” If that entire conversation had one conclusion, it would be this.

“The Army cannot be allowed to know that you’re here.” Stark seemed like he was almost forcing it out through gritted teeth, barely reigned energy jittering through his frame. “You need to leave. I’ll…I’ll fetch Rogers.”

Quiet.

“I didn’t set this up-”

“I know you didn’t.” Sam cut in, and Stark startled, widened eyes flitting to his own for brief seconds.

“But that doesn’t mean…” Sam started, and stopped in frustration, because he needed to get this across clear and unimpeded. “If you insist on accompanying him back to…back to where we’re keeping Barne-”

“I can recognise a Wakandan aircraft when I see one, how much of an imbecile do you think I am.” Stark dropped the words, icy ill-hewn things, fast and cold and uninhibited.

 _Right. Of course._ Sam blinked steadily. “I had to make sure.”

Trailing silence. Stark’s throat worked, tongue flicking out to dab at dry, cracked lips compulsively. “I didn’t set this up. And you believe me.”

“I gave you that info at the Raft, didn’t I.” It was Sam’s turn for a humourless smile, barely lifting his lips. “Wouldn’t have done that if I didn’t, in all.”

“Circumstances have changed since then.” There was something distant about the words.

Sam didn’t break eye contact. “For you, maybe. Not for us.”

Another mirthless smile, fringed by darkness, there and gone before its cause could be investigated. “I suppose so.”

A beat. “I went as a friend.” Stark said, something ineffably hopeless about those words. “I did.”

Sam exhaled. The empathetic pain in his chest twisted tighter. “I know.”

Stark blinked at him again. “Al..alright.” And then, like a rush of words falling one over the other, “This whole ‘conviction-in-other-people’ thing you have going on. Very impressive. I can almost understand your rising popularity.”

Tight and tight, more than a man could bear. “Thanks Tony.”

And Sam turned, because he’d done the best he could, and time was running out and Steve was in danger, and he could do nothing about either those things but Stark could and _would_ and now he had an illegal flight to guide out of airspace crawling with military aircraft and he couldn’t fuck this up for T’Challa-

“And while we’re on a streak-” The words exited almost in a garble, and Sam twisted his head back, to where Stark was staring fixedly at some point in the dark, or maybe just the entirety of it. But he raised his head, and his gaze found its mark. “Tell Barton to go back home.”

_“The futurist, gentlemen! The futurist is here! He sees all! He knows what's best for you, whether you like it or_ _-_ _”_

“You know where the farmhouse is.”

“I do, and his wife is there, and his kids are there, and nothing is going to happen to them.” Stark’s mouth twisted, like the assurance burned. Or the fact that he’d had to make it. “Or to him, if he goes back and keeps his head low. Besides there…there’s someone waiting there for him.”

A quiet, unmistakeable uptilt. “Tell him that?”

Sam’s lips curved, head sinking in a single nod-because he was always going to toss his lot in with faith. Doubts and all. “I will.”

  

 

 

 

_~interlude~_

 

The quinjet touched down silently. Everything in sight was green and gold, like a vision out of a Tolkien novel.

Growing up in the back of circus caravans and being shuffled from one foster home to the next wasn’t very conducive for cultivating a reading habit-and Clint didn’t boast of one. He’d only heard the Tolkien novels read out loud, and not until his thirties. Laura started reading _The_ _Hobbit_ out to Lila when she was four, and Clint had been drawn in, an unwilling, enraptured moth to her flame. Lila dropped off to sleep less than  three chapters in but Laura continued reading; her light voice winding round and round the melodic syllables, tripping gracefully up names and titles and dwelling lovingly on places her mind had resided in as a kid: Rivendell, Mirkwood, the Misty Mountains.

Ten years into a marriage, and he’d heard the entire Lord of the Rings hexalogy, and the _Silmarillion_ to boot. The latter didn’t make much sense to him (though in his less deprecatory moments, he thought it didn’t make much sense to anyone else either).

The first book in general Clint had heard in its entirety was Crime and Punishment, in the original Russian. It was a bit of a jolt, the very first time-he was unused to foreign voices in his space, let alone his safehouse, and equally unused to KGB agents camped out in the sole armchair in said safehouse, for all that she was apparently a traitor to her kind. She’d moved the chair, set it in the corner of the room with the most light and murmured the lines out loud, the language spilling out of her lips not quite harsh, not quite lyrical. It was the first time he’d seen Natasha Romanov uncurl from within Natalia Alianovna Romanova-in the shape of words spelt out in an unfamiliar lilt, almost dutiful in its pronunciation- she said she wanted to keep her accent sharp.

(He knew the language still smelt of home to her. A home that had given her more pain than belonging. A home she could never return to.)

He never complained. He liked listening to her too.

For all that she could emote better than the world’s greatest mime when she felt the inclination, Natasha’s reading was steady and constant. No rise and fall of feeling, no words delivered faster than the next. Clint had no way of figuring out what any of it meant, except they did for three weeks and five chapters straight-her reading from the corner, him spying on the building across the street in one of the most peaceful stake outs he’d ever had. He remembered wondering what it said about him, that an assassin’s voice spelling out the conflict between criminal impulse and conscience was more soothing to him than any lullaby, but he stopped that train of thought quickly. Clint didn’t question the facts of his life, much. They got presented to him, he moved on and adapted as needed. Simple as that.

They inched through, mission by mission, chapter by chapter-reports and assassinations, blood and words. They would only complete the book two years later: Clint bleeding out in Belmopan, Natasha reading to pass the time until help came. Her reading was as steady as ever, even as he cradled his head on her folded legs and stared upside down, watching her chin move senselessly for hours altogether. He didn’t register when foreign hands pulled him away, damp hair on the back of his skull leaving the warm patch on her skin. Didn’t recall the sheer agony of being pulled out on the stretcher, dosed to the gills while the jet buzzed under him, only to be cut open even wider than he was and sewn back shut hours later.

The last thing he remembered was the whitened knuckles of her hands, as she was finally easing the book shut.

Regardless. When your best friend is Russian, you pick up a few words-and his oft-remarked on idiocy set aside, Clint had a decent knack for languages. It was an almost conscious effort on his part though…not to pick up more than was minimal and necessary to get by on. He didn’t want to lose this. This hypnotism at feeling the words roll over him with and without meaning. Taking both him and Natasha to a place they’d never been, in their own ways. Childhood.

God, he missed her.

Clint knocked.

He counted out ten seconds before she opened the door, and tried not to feel insulted. Failed. “How big of an amateur do you think I am, if you think waiting to open the door is going to make me think you didn’t know I was outside?.” _Or don’t have cameras installed in my own fucking porch_ , but of course, that was neither here nor there.

“I was putting Nathaniel to bed.” Natasha answered evenly, then turned around to pace inside, newly shorn hair bobbing around her sharp jawline. Or maybe she’d cut it months ago. He’d have no way of knowing.

(…Nate. God. If Clint started thinking about him now, he might just break down and then they’d get nowhere at all.)

They walked together into his kitchen, Clint only a few paces behind Natasha’s falling footsteps, eyes immediately darting to every glossy surface in the room. God, Laura had been stress cleaning again. She only did it when he wasn’t around, because she knew how much he hated reflective surfaces that messed with his sightlines…but that wasn’t a path he could go down either _youwerenthereyouwerenthere you weren’t you’re **never** here_ _-_

Clint let pushed out a particularly long exhale, and leaned back till he could feel the familiar granite of his countertop digging into his vertebrae. Natasha dropped down on the wooden chair three metres diagonally across from him, immediately propping a foot on the coffee table. Clint twitched.

“My wife cleaned that.”

“Your wife isn’t home.” Natasha returned, and something in Clint’s spine released till the edge of the counter dragged up from his coccygeal to his lumbar. This was good. This was good. One at a time. If she was here, she’d smile at him with those solemn eyes again and Natasha would slink away in the background and he _needed_ to get this done one at a time.

Silence. It didn’t weigh on them like it did other people, settling comfortably instead in the spaces between-curling up on Natasha’s loosened shoulders, pressing down on the hands tapping out a constant rhythm on Clint’s thighs. Or maybe it didn’t weigh anything because there were no spaces between them. No room for anything to wedge them apart.

(Clint could still feel the creak of his bow pushing down on the tendons of her neck, so much stronger than they seemed. So much frailer than she wanted them to be.)

“I heard you said some things to Stark.” The afternoon light filtered through the strands of her hair, shadowing her eyelids. Last names. She must be feeling guiltier than she expected.

“I said some things to Steve too.” His words were short.

_“And while I’d never back down from saving a man’s life, Captain-we damn well should have had the right to make that choice for ourselves.”_

Her eyelids rose, red lashes turning gold in the light. Her eyes were colourless. “You blame me for something.”

Clint said nothing.

“SHIELD was your first real anchor. Something you could hold on to, come back to. And then, suddenly…you couldn’t.” Natasha blinked twice during the spiel, facial expressions barely flickering. “I understand you felt you couldn’t trust a higher power after tha-”

“You don’t need to psychoanalyse me, Nat.” Clint didn’t blink at all. He stared at the small jars on the counter, glass with metal tops, screwed on tight, filled with sticky jam. One, two, three. “You can just ask.”

Natasha pressed her lips together. She released them on a soundless exhale, and he could feel her eyes trace his face. Her voice didn’t waver, words simplistic. “Why are you mad at me?”

 _I’m mad at everyone. It’s how I deal._ But she needed rationale right now, not emotion. “You’re the one who hasn’t been in contact.”

“I was here.” Natasha said. Voice steady, ever constant. “Three weeks. I was here.”

 _You knew I wouldn’t be_ _-_ not helpful. “You aren’t pissed at me?”

“No.” Natasha said, and Clint wanted to take those little jars in his hands, take them and smash them against the tile. Small glass jars of blackberry jam that his wife had slaved over because she couldn’t think about why her husband wasn’t home with their kids.

“After everything that-after us.” His words were dropping like rocks, ill-hewn and utterly unsatisfactory. Clint moved his eyes to Nat’s, willing her to see. The missions, the blood. Fury, Hill…Coulson. Homes and hidey-holes, enemy bases and foreign cells. Mind control and ledgers and books read out loud. “I’d never blame you for the way you think. For not thinking like they wanted you to.”

Even if he was part of the collective this time.

(but it could still sting).

“SHIELD wasn’t home to you?”

“It was…” Natasha paused, because she was better than him, and wanted to pick the right words. She always did, which was the single most frustrating thing because they were the right ones for the ears listening. Never her. “It was a source of safety. Companionship. Purpose.”

Clint waited.

And she delivered, voice roughened right at the edge. Eyes meeting his, cool and certain and resigned. “I always knew it was temporary.”

The quiet resurged. She didn’t drop her eyes, even though her voice broke again. “Why are you mad at me?”

Clint breathed in deeply. The shadows were lengthening across the countertop, the sun sinking lower. They’d all be getting in soon, light pattering feet and quiet giggles, petering off the second they saw the two shades seated on both sides of the kitchen.

“You let them get away.”

He could hear her pull a breath in, louder in her surprise. Some people thought they knew each other well enough to predict every movement. They knew each other well enough to still throw each other for a loop now and then, the way not many could, past the experienced spies’ eyes.

Natasha repeated it, maybe just to be sure. “You were on the side helping them get away.”

“I didn’t know the stakes.” Clint huffed a short laugh, fingers tapping on his thigh faster. Any time now. “I was stupid. Everyone was stupid, sides be fucked to hell.”

_Why were you?_

The silence dragged much longer this time, and Clint was surprised it dragged at all. What was Nat holding up her sleeve this time? What logic would she use to explain this? There had to be one, he was sure of it. He was ready to accept it and take it for scripture. There were too many versions of the truth-if he had to pick one, he’d pick hers.

When the words came, they weren’t what he expected. “You’ve watched the footage from New York.”

Guttural alien shrieks. Screaming. Dust, dust, everywhere. “The Battle?”

Natasha gave a brief shake of her head. Her eyes had dropped to the linoleum tiles, scoping something in the cracks where one slab fit into the other. “Before, in the helicarrier.”

Cold, unfeeling blue. “Of course.”

“The interrogation with Loki?” She still wasn’t raising her eyes.

_This is my bargain, you mewling quim._

“Yes.” She’d been in exceptional form, as always.

“First rule of lying.” Natasha murmured, and her eyes had gone strangely still, fixated on the polish of the floor.

Tell the truth. Not the truth they want, but the truth nonetheless. Nothing you ever come up with will ever be as convincing as the truth.

Clint breathed.

_“Agent Barton was sent to kill me, he made a different call.”_

_“And what will you do if I vow to spare him?”_

“Steve wasn’t going to stop. He was never going to stop.” Those light coloured eyes flitted up, finally; and maybe he was imagining the guilt in them, but there was no regret. “I understood it. Without blame.”

“World hangs in the balance.” Clint felt the words weigh on his tongue, pulled from archives of old memory that would never grow dusty. “And you bargain for the life of one man.” _You understood that._

Natasha’s eyes were clear, and unwavering. Clint’s eyes burned.

“Sentiment.” The word tasted cold on his tongue, like something he’d heard before and chosen to suppress. “You made a judgement call. Not based on facts, or consequences, or morals. But because you… empathised.”

(Two scenes, playing in symphony behind his eyelids. Captain America and the Winter Soldier dueling it out on the ramparts of a falling Helicarrier; him and Nat throwing desperate blows within the bowels of another one, the entire memory filtered through a cool wash of blue.)

“He was my friend.” Natasha smiled, tired and without warmth. “All decisions have emotional components to them. Any one. Any _side_.” The word sharpened imperceptibly. “That tells themselves emotion had nothing to do with it, are lying.”

Yeah. Yeah. That sounded about right. He could take this truth.

And she could take one too. “Not you though. Never you.”

Natasha watched him over the counter, hollows under her eyes. The light didn’t look like it was limning her every feature, now. Just putting her shadows on display.

“I know.”

The clock ticked. The sun had dipped almost completely under the horizon; just leaving orange streaks on the glossy surfaces that shone into Clint’s eyes. What was keeping Laura and the kids?

“Alright, your turn.”

Natasha’s fingernails tapped against the countertop. He never knew if it was a fidget she only let herself display in front of him, or if it was just a display. _I won’t leave just because you have no more secrets._

That was the mind of a spy all over, though. You’re only equal to the information you hold.

Natasha lifted, and dropped a shoulder. “I’m not angry at you.”

“Anger is a futile emotion.” Long way from knowing that, and actually putting it to practice though. “I’m asking you to tell me where you think I went wrong, so I can do better.”

Not even a half-hearted shrug this time, just matter of fact words. “You wouldn’t have done anything differently.”

It wasn’t judgmental, but Clint let his voice sharpen a little anyway. “Let me decide that.”

An exhale. He’d seen that stillness in her posture before, something almost studied about its quality. “You shouldn’t have done anything at all.”

Clint said nothing.

Natasha’s eyes went back to the linoleum floor she was so interested in scoping. It would probably save her life too, in some insane Natasha way, when that attack on the farmhouse finally came. “You should have stayed here.”

Three jars of blackberry jam on the counter, not counting the ones presumably-almost definitely filling up the fridge. The breath whistled out of his tightening chest; deceptively, despicably light. Sometimes Clint wished he and Nat weren’t half this brutally honest with each other.

“Wanda needed my-”

“Wanda should have stayed in the Facility too.” Natasha cut through, mincing of words left far behind.

A pause, all too deliberate. Clint felt out the words slowly, “I thought you and Stark didn’t see eye to eye anymore.”

“Not about this.” She said it like it deserved no argument.

Too bad. “This wasn’t her fault-”

“It was.”

What. What. Clint felt a familiar bloom of protective rage in his chest, though the target had never been Nat before. “Lagos was a clusterfuck and the casualties _without_ her acting would have been way wor-”

“Sokovia, actually.” Natasha’s expression didn’t change, worn out yet implacable. “She chose to side with Hydra. Started off this whole ‘clusterfuck’.”

His voice was climbing in amplitude. He knew it, and could do nothing about it. “She never intended to-”

“Intentions don’t matter.” The words snapped, and Clint jerked back on instinct. Nat’s frame was as still as ever, nothing in her posture to indicate a change; but her words were falling swiftly. “Tony didn’t intend to hunt down his teammates but that’s what we ended up doing anyway. He and Bruce created a homicidal A.I. that led to the disaster which brought us to this path, regardless of their intentions. And Wanda messed with his head in the first place.”

“We’ve all done things we regret.” This shouldn’t have been something he’d have to remind her of.

“At least Tony didn’t start off helping the homicidal AI he had a hand in creating.” Sharp and cold, like a whip crack. He could see the cracks lining her expressionless face now. “She went from that to getting a free spot on the Avengers. How many years did we spend in SHIELD, atoning for our regrets-” He could see the film play out before her eyelids, just the way it did on his: Ottawa, Belmopan, Budapest, Dhaka, Riyadh…, an endless series of names they exchanged like humorous in jokes, pretending that they hadn’t bled out for each one, “-before we even knew the Initiative was something on the cards-”

“Jealousy doesn’t suit you, Nat.” The words escaped Clint’s lips, like they were apt to. He regretted it almost immediately, which was ironic for the conversation.

At least Natasha wasn’t looking expressionless anymore.

 _It’s like the shots you make,_ she’d told him once. _You lob these wildly inaccurate words and yet they end up stinging anyway._

Natasha looked at him for several seconds, unblinking. Then, like releasing a dead weight on Clint’s twisting heart-a small burst of air puffed past her lips, bitter-fond.

“I almost don’t want to know what you said to Steve.” Those lips curved. “Or Tony.”

_“You gotta watch your back with this guy. There’s a chance he’s gonna break it.”_

Clint closed his eyes.

When he opened them again, Nat’s blues were scoping over the lines of his face- quiet and sympathetic and aching. “We’ve all made mistakes before. The crux is that we regret. Stand responsible. Atone.”

Atonement. That seemed like a common theme with her and Stark.

“Her brother died.” It had been weighing on his tongue for ages, so it was only fitting that he let it out, bleak and flat. Clint didn’t feel any better for it. “I think she knows that she fucked up.”

It was a common theme for all of them, really.

He smiled a little, at the thought. “The Avengers, ladies and gentlemen. So twisted up in guilt that we broke each other.”

Sokovia, Ultron, Bucky Barnes falling from a train. All warped into the same feedback cycle.

“I think,” Natasha began slowly. Clint raised his head, and she was mirroring the little upturn to his lips. “The word people use here is ‘preach’.”

His bark of a laugh was half surprise, half relief. Fuck, he’d forgotten how she used to ambush him like this.

And then he heard the door creak open behind his back, a wavering voice. “Clint?”

His heart sped impossibly, the room seeming too tiny all of a sudden. Fuck, he really should have knocked out that kitchen wall when he had the time last spring. The jam jars continued to stand recriminatingly on the counter.

Opposite him, Natasha straightened up. Met his eyes, and gave him a tiny nod.

Clint breathed.

“Hey, honey. I’m home.”

 

_~_

 

 

Steve could hear the ocean when he woke.

It was the softest sound, softer than rain running down a leaf, or silk brushing against human skin. Spider legs, scratching against glass as a critter crawled up a window. He’d emerged into an entirely new world of sound after the serum.

This, though. This was quiet…barely whispering at the nerve endings of his eardrums, a whoosh that was there and gone. But at the same time it was low-a baritone that rumbled up from the depths of the earth, like having the faintest glimpse of something whose scope was beyond comprehension. A straining sound in the distance, deceptively quiet, layered with deeper things. The faintest threat on the horizon.

Steve opened his eyes.

The roof above his head was dark. The walls around him too-though as the seconds ticked away in his mind and his vision adjusted, details began to emerge. The walls were a dark grey, unpainted concrete damp in patches, creating shapes and swirls. A single, hanging fluorescent bulb gave off light-a dim yellow that licked against the overlapping tin sheets the roof seemed to be constructed of, gleaming dull and silver. He could see rust flakes at the joints.

…how did he know it was tin? There was another sound blanketing the ambience, a faint _rat-a-tat-tat_ that no one who’d heard ever really forgot. The sound of rain drops spattering against a tin roof, fast and quick, like the rhythm beat out by a marching band.

His eyes moved from the roof to the other source of light in the room, though barely that. It was a line of white, peeking out from between a cemented sill and musty, dark drapes. A window, then.

Steve took a breath, and started coughing.

“Shh, shh.” There was a presence at his side, a broad palm pressing at the back of his neck. He could feel cool clay at his lips, water attempting to seep through. The…glass? pot? …tilted against his mouth further, and he tried to gulp the liquid down, throat working uselessly. Some of it ran into his parched mouth, the rest down his chin, puddling in his neck. His entire torso was aching. Information was seeping through in increments.

“Slowly.” The voice said. The glass moved away, and Steve tasted after it, tongue flickering out futilely in the dry air. “Don’t move too much.”

He was still in his uniform, that much he could register. A uniform stiffened with blood that was still keeping his cracked ribs in place. The bed under him was hard, but not very cold. The room was brightening as the seconds passed, features growing clearer with every blink and his head a little less foggy.

He didn’t have a broken collar bone; else he would be in agony right now. Steve moved his head to the side, inch by inch, and looked up at his caretaker.

 _Broad,_ was the first thing to strike his head. The man wasn’t very tall, maybe five feet eight, or nine at most, not enough to loom over the bedside. He was broad though-with wide shoulders, thick, sloping arms and a round-ish face. Strong nose, smooth chin under thick lips, set against dark skin and darker eyes. His black brows arched high on a curved forehead, sweat gleaming against the hairline-the hair itself short and black, bristle-like.

His body was stiff enough as it was, or Steve would have stiffened further. None of those facial features were ringing any bells. He’d never seen this man before, not even in old SHIELD records or photographs, or something grey and blurry in the newspaper. And unlike most people, Steve could be completely sure about that.

SHIELD told you to stay silent, and wait for the captor to begin the conversation. More information to be gleaned, that way. Army told you to say nothing at all, except your name, rank and serial number.

Steve opened his mouth. “Who are you.”

“Tom.” The man said, an unfamiliar accent licking at the tail end of the word. He placed the little clay tumbler carefully on a stool a couple of paces away and turned back around, corners of his mouth upticking into something reassuring.

Steve didn’t blink. “You don’t look like a Tom.” He’d already guzzled the liquid the man had poured into his mouth in his earlier, mindless state. Not his best moment. Sure, it tasted like water, albeit slightly stale and tacky, but that didn’t prove anything. He didn’t intend on making any further mistakes.

The man’s mouth curled into something amused, as if to say _you think?_ The lines breaking around his mouth pointed towards him being in his fifties at least, maybe more judging by liver spots and blemishes. “People from…outside find it a little difficult to pronounce our names. So I stick to something easy.” A small pause. “You’re a paranoid man, Captain Rogers.”

“And you can stop looking for your shield too.” Steve’s roving eyes stilled, memory clapping him in place. He…he wasn’t really….he _knew_ he didn’t have it on him anymore. Old habits died hard, that was all. The man shrugged, broad shoulders rising and falling. “I would have brought it over if I’d found it. Maybe you lost it in the debris.”

Debris. Dust and stone raining down, supporting columns collapsing like cards…oh god, the _boy_. Steve’s voice didn’t change. “Where are we?”

“You’re off Manus, if that’s what you’re asking.” The man…Tom, for now, dragged the stool over, wood screeching against cement. He settled his bulky frame into it heavily, poor illumination catching against deep-set eyes. “Still on Papua New Guinea though. Don’t worry, you’re safe.”

 _Foreign information cannot be counted upon_. Natasha’s voice whispered in his head-but something was better than nothing. He’d push himself up, swing his legs off the pallet he was on right now if it didn’t feel like he would keel over in place. Waiting was the best course of action right now. The serum was already at work, he could feel it in the deep itch of his skin, the twisting of his belly-working away, mending the tears. He wasn’t nearly strong enough to force a physical altercation with the man. So in the meantime, he’d take the information, unreliable though it was.

“What about the others?”

“Don’t know about them, I’m afraid.” Tom’s voice was deep, and gentle. “I know a couple of my friends are taking care of some of the recovered detainees, but we didn’t find anyone else from the building we pulled you out of. Was there someone else?”

Sounds blared in and out of his mind like a fractured record, somewhere beneath the peaceful drumming of the rain on the roof. A cascade of images flipping past his eye too fast to see: the ground shaking under their feet, the roof crumbling, the bars lining the cells twisting in place. Repulsors flashing white in the dark, his heart frantically thudding against his ribcage, words being pushed past cracked lips. _“Go…go now. He’ll never forgive me if_ _-_ _”_ The onslaught of panic, the dark crushing him again. “ ** _Go_** _.”_

“My friend got out.” Steve wasn’t aware of the words until they struck his eardrums, rebounding off the grey walls. “But there was-”

 _Don’t reveal compromising information. Nothing they can use against you._ Steve cleared his throat. “I don’t recall there being anyone else.”

Tom looked at him steadily, something almost like understanding flashing through coal-black eyes. It was…discomfiting. “Well, the area is buzzing with rescue efforts now. Army reached there a while back. Anyone who…might have been there, should be safe and sound.”

 _That won’t help._ The thought flashed past his mind, quick and involuntary, and it took a couple of delayed seconds for Steve to realise he’d voiced it out loud. Shit, he needed the serum to start working faster; he needed a clear head _now_.

Tom hadn’t stopped looking at him, gaze keen and acute. And…sombre, in the strangest way. “The army won’t…ask for permission. Whoever you…they’ll be safe. Don’t worry.”

 _Whitened, small knuckles clutching stone. Wide eyes, frantic and desperate in the dark._ Pitch black like Tom’s, now that he thought about it. Steve raised his eyes to meet Tom’s stare, that regard too perceptive by half. It was…he felt pared through, scraped over.

_“Co-come on now. Co…” A coughing fit interrupted the words, grit and grime seeming to coat the inside of his lungs. The ground beneath him was shaking. “..ome here. Take my hand.”_

_Terrified eyes, hands that wouldn’t reach out._

_“Don’t be …don’t be scared. I’m…I’m Captain America.”_

Maybe it wasn’t the injuries making his head feel scrambled through, turned inside out and reeling. It was like the shudders had started deep beneath the ground a long time ago, tectonic quakes that had somehow travelled into his body and made a home. He felt shaken up from the inside. Cracks running through the foundations, everything ill-fitting and displaced.

_He cleared his throat, tasted blood in his mouth. Tried to speak louder. Maybe the boy didn’t understand English. But what could be more universal than this_ _-_ _a hand stretched out to help, an assuring smile._

_“Take my hand.”_

“They’ll be safe.” Tom repeated, smile soft and regretful. The rain pattered out against the roof, water sliding along the smooth metal sheets, falling to the ground with multiple _plinks_ -all adding to the concerto of sound building in the world outside.

He didn’t have to hide anything. This man knew.

“He wouldn’t take my hand.” The words left his lips, strange and distant. Steve ran a hand up his left arm, fingers squeezing the muscles as they passed-a futile attempt to warm himself. His shoulder ached. “He was going to be crushed, and he wouldn’t…”

“I wouldn’t take it personally.” Tom’s lips twisted, humour tainted by the words.

“Why not?” The words left his chest on a breath. _What did I do wrong?_

“Well…let’s put it this way.” The stool screeched against the floor again-Tom was getting up. The swinging light from the bulb reflected in his irises. “I saved your life.”

His loose cheeks sagged a little when he smiled, gentle and accepting. “Do you trust me?”

The breath stopped still in his chest for a second, refusing to move onward. Steve didn’t blink, bile burning in the base of his throat. “That’s…not the same thing.”

“You’re right, it isn’t.” Tom turned around and took two steps away, large frame hiding what his hands were bustling over in the corner. “I’m not wearing a cape.”

Steve didn’t say a word. Something creaked in the silence, loud and jarring.

Tom turned again, as if just to accommodate Steve. His face still looked kind. “I apologise, that was unfair. You must permit us our…defensiveness. I mean it from the heart-do not take it personally. Someone like you, it’s just…”

“Someone like me?” Steve had already risen half-way through the passing minutes without realising it-he pushed himself up all the way through, palms pressing hard for support against the pallet. He didn’t want to be lying down for this. He didn’t think he could bear it.

 “Fair skin, flaxen hair.” Tom smiled again, small and quiet, as if it was a joke. “Someone like you…there are many like you. Men and women. Who come…build us houses. Hospitals. Schools. Who want to help. We see it, and we welcome it. We are grateful.”

“But sometimes…” And the smile paled, faded unobtrusively into the distance. Tom’s eyes were clouded over. “Sometimes we remember other things. That is all.”

And then he cocked his head to the side, ears pricking up. “The rain seems to have stopped.” The smile returned. “Would you like to go outside?”

Steve…hadn’t realised the absence of the pattering sound, the quiet on the roof. The air smelled musty, the silence loud enough to swallow him whole. He nodded.

Tom walked around to the other side of the bed, padding steps soft despite his large frame. Steve sucked in a breath, feeling the muscles in his arm tense, his jaw grit tight. His fingertips dug into the pallet-an exhale, and a superhuman heave, and the dead weight of his legs slid across and landed on the ground. His left ankle almost gave way-he winced, incisor sinking into his bottom lip, and pushed through.

Tom grasped his left arm and pulled, Steve let him. His head reeled a little with the added height, world blurring; his weight coming to rest across a broad shoulder, Tom losing his breath with a quiet ‘oof’. Two seconds of simultaneous breathing, and then they stepped forward, staggering to the door step by cautious step.

When the door banged open, it was like being released into a new world. The smell of salt was crisp on his senses, underlaid by the pungent tang of seaweed. The air slapping him across the face was brisk, and wet. Cold. Steve put a foot forward, and Tom followed him; steady under his arm all the while.

The sand was wet and coarse under his bare heels. There was no sun. There were stretches and stretches of brown sand as far as the eye could see, and then grey sea beyond. Clumps of trees Steve didn’t know the names of emerged here and there, interrupting the flat landscape.

It was beautiful.

Five more steps and they came to a stop, feet sinking slightly into the muddy sand. Steve began by folding his knees, then gingerly bending at the waist-Tom holding his arm up all the while. The grip slackened and Steve hit the ground with a thump, the impact thudding up his tailbone, all the way into his spine. He stretched his legs slowly, heels drawing vertical lines into the roughened sand, arms drawing back with scraped palms resting against the same gritty ground. The supporting touch left his arm, and Tom settled himself by his side-legs folding comfortably into lotus position, like it was his front porch. Steve supposed it was.

Moisture was beginning to pepper his face- from the rain, ocean spray or the air itself, he didn’t know. Steve pressed his lips together, tasting water. “The other things, that you remember. What are they?”

The ocean tossed in the distance, grey tides crashing into the surf, frothing white. Tom’s eyes were fixed somewhere in between, the horizon maybe-except the divide between sea and sky was difficult to find, when they both were tinged so hoary. “It isn’t me. It’s…a consciousness, maybe. The echo of a memory passed from man to child, generation to generation.”

“Our home is beautiful. Eight hundred and fifty two known languages in the nation, twelve of whom have no native speakers.” Tom’s face looked wan in this light, lighter splotches and blemishes on dark skin, itself broken up into a thousand lines. “But we have a messy history. The northern half of Papua New Guinea was ruled by the Germans since 1884. The southern half, by the British. When the Great War broke out, all of that was transferred to the Australians.”

A small, almost soundless exhale. “During World War II, the New Guinea campaign was one of the major conflicts of interest between Japan and the Allies. Over two hundred thousand servicemen died-Japanese, Australian and American. Bled out over these sands.”

The tide crashed again. Steve could hear his words whipped around by the winds, quiet and hollow. “Was that…after my time?”

“Forty two to forty five. Right during your rise to prominence, actually.” Tom smiled again, tiredness creeping over the expression. “We were legally a British possession till forty nine, only established independence from Australia in seventy five. We still have close ties to them, though.” And the smile waned again. “Largest aid donor to the country.”

Steve stared at the bleak seascape, storm clouds buffeted along the sky by great winds. The sea was forever shifting, a gigantic mass of ripples, with white flecks in the distance. The moisture had soaked into his pants, clogged in the sand caking his thighs, wet the back of his shirt and dripped off the bridge of his nose. His throat was dry.

Minutes crawled by in silence. Three waves had crashed into the shore, and ebbed back out, before he found the voice to speak again.

“I…understand.” He tasted the word, tasted the coarse sand on his tongue. It was so cloudy, but he could see out to the sea for miles. “More…rightly. I can’t.” An exhale, tossed away in the howl of the wind. “I suppose that was the point.”

_“Don’t be scared. I’m…I’m Captain America.”_

_A voice ringing out in the dark: defiant, terrified. Perhaps of him._

_“So?”_

“I suppose I got so caught up in the fight for the little guy,” Steve watched the ocean in turmoil, watched his words fleet away after the winds in pursuit. “That I forgot to ask his permission.”

 _I’m just a boy from Brooklyn._ But he wasn’t, was he. Not anymore.

When he turned his head to the side, minutes later, Tom was looking at him, steady and assuring. “You do good things, Captain Rogers.”

“I.” Steve felt the words wrestle in his throat, let the true ones come out instead. “I’d like to think so.”

“You do.” Tom turned to look back at the sea, water droplets peppering his bristly hair.

“Do you like superheroes?”

“I don’t know them.” Tom returned simply, eyes falling shut for a second as if to feel the drizzly wind better.

“You seem like you know a lot about us.” Everyone did. All those splashes in the papers, the gigantic headlines. Captain America and Iron Man, standing back to back against a portal opening in the sky. Captain America and Iron Man, gauntleted fist against vibranium shield, while an airport burned in the background.

“I know of them.” Tom said, and opened his eyes. His loose shirt was flapping in the wind. “So I suppose the answer to your question is that yes, I like them very much. I don’t know if I trust them.”

_“it’s not about being right all the time, it’s that I trust our **friends** more than some shadowy government organisation_ _-_ _”_

“I suppose I can live with that.” His heels were three inches deep in the sand. He’d been digging them in, and hadn’t even noticed. But they just sunk right through.

Tom raised his eyes to the sky. “Can you?”

A seagull cried, in the distance.

Then, like an afterthought, to a statement completed before. “Tony Stark doesn’t seem half bad though.”

Steve smiled, mirthless and unsurprised. _Of course._ “The American multibillionaire?”

“Seems a little hypocritical, I know.” There was a rueful twist to Tom’s mouth, his large hands coming up to settle peacefully against his thighs. “But when people aren’t fighting over our lands, or building prisons on them…the biggest challenge we face is the rising waters. The warming airs, the melting ice and higher waves. Five islands have been lost to the Pacific, so far.” The words that followed were serious, somehow like only a joke could be. “His suit may be shiny, but he revolutionised clean energy. And I appreciated that.”

“Yeah.” Steve stared out at the surf, heart thudding away steadily. “It is rather wonderful.”

Silence never really fell, not with the ocean rumbling in the distance, but several seconds passed without words.

“Heard of him first in Canberra. Among other things.” Tom’s words drifted on the breeze, quiet and ephemeral. “I’d gone there years ago, did a Bachelors of International Relations. Came back home eventually…but I suppose I never stopped thinking.”

 Steve pulled his feet out of the sand, watching the grains slowly trickle down the back of his ankles. “I’d always wanted to study art, or maybe history. Never completed college.”

He felt it, like clockwork; the smile breaking out on the other man’s face. The words were warm. “See, I never knew that about you.”

Steve twisted his head, meeting Tom’s eyes easily. They were lined several times over, an abundant smattering of spots on the eyelids. Crow’s feet. _You look as old as I feel._

“When did it happen.” Steve’s voice broke through half way. It was difficult to keep his heart in check-pounding along like hammer against anvil, coupled with the ocean’s deep roar in the distance. Everything was unmoored. The cracks had gone too deep. “This link-between knowing, and trusting. Aren’t we supposed to have faith in each other? In humanity?”

“We should.” Tom answered, like it was that easy. “And we don’t. You…still trust the goodness in others. Fight for people, without knowing if they deserve it.” A pause, almost like he knew what his following words would mean. Even if that was impossible. “You’re a good man, Captain Rogers.”

The blood rushed to his ears, a roaring sound. Or maybe it was still the ocean. He couldn’t tell the difference anymore, between it and him.

_“People with agendas, and agendas change.”_

_“The safest hands are still our own.”_

_“Again, Rogers. This would have been a hell of a lot more touching if you hadn’t pulled shit that indicated anything **but** trust.”_

“I can’t, anymore. Trust.” Was it an assertion? A confession? All Steve knew was that it was hollow-a flat assembly of syllables and words thrown to the wilderness. He was vaguely aware of getting up to his feet, knees unstable, sides twanging in pain.

There were rustling sounds beside him, as Tom pushed himself to his feet too, palms smacking against each other to brush the sand away. He was still smiling. “Well, you haven’t attempted an escape plan yet. You listened to everything I had to say, and answered me honestly. Maybe even more so than anyone else you’ve talked to, of late.” He sounded certain. Steve used to know what that certainty felt like, once upon a time.

“So I’m asking you.” Tom didn’t avert his gaze, not for a second. “Are you sure about that?”

One beat. Two.

“Trust is sometimes an impulse, Captain. And sometimes, it’s a choice.”

Steve cast a final eye over the ocean, grim and tumultuous and unchangeable. Something settled in his chest, and it wasn’t cold lead. “Call me Steve.”

Tom inclined his head, wrinkled smile intact. “Steve.”

“May I know your name?”

The smile grew wider. “Swando.”

“Swando.” Steve pronounced it slowly, tongue curling around the ‘oh’. “That isn’t too difficult.”

“I suppose I just want to see if people ask.” Swando’s teeth were brilliant white against his lips, cheeks hanging loosely on the sides. He lifted a hand to his brow, deep-set eyes straining into the distance. “I suppose I must take my leave.”

Steve matched his gaze, eyes roving against the horizon. There, somewhere between the line where grey sea met grey sky. Something red and gleaming, growing larger.

Steve smiled.

 

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ...more than 20k, and they still haven't officially re-met yet. I think you guys are getting a sense of how slow this slow burn is going to be :P This fixing-job is hard, guys. But half of next chapter is going to be just Steve and Tony, actually interacting with each other, so there's that to look forward to XD Comment if you liked!


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